Sakikaeru
by hikari-no-tsubasa
Summary: Sakikaeru: To Bloom Again A retelling of POTO set in Tokyo in the year 2000, with a few twists!
1. yumemiru shounen

**Introductory Note**

This fic will contain strong language, sexual situations, and homosexuality. If those sorts of things offend you, please stop reading now, rather than flaming me later. Thank you.

**Chapter 1: yumemiru shounen -the dreamer** - 

"Wipe your tears from your eyes

Just leave, and forget me

No need to be hurt anymore…"

Masato Ijima, known as Teru to his fans, wiped a stray bit of mascara from beneath one eye and leaned back to gaze at himself in the mirror, continuing to sing under his breath as he did so. It wasn't a bad makeup job, he admitted reluctantly to himself. With his long pink hair tied back, he considered with a smile, he almost looked like a girl. Teru was not entirely sure how he felt about that fact, but in the world of visual kei, he knew, androgyny was an asset that would pack screaming fangirls into the halls.

"Go away from me now," he continued to sing. "I don't know, What is love?" It was a sad song, but a smile played across Teru's mouth as he sang it. He loved visual kei, loved the music, the makeup, the costumes. The chance to indulge his own fantasies and inspire the fantasies of others. And tonight, he would be playing here, at Meguro Rock Maykan, a legend of a live house, where legendary bands were born.

It was with only the slightest bit of regret that Teru reminded himself that his place was behind the drumset and not behind the microphone tonight. Yasu had been right, of course: wannabe singers were a dime a dozen, and there were plenty of visual bands in Tokyo who would have sold their collective souls for a drummer with long pink hair and a penchant for black leather and fishnets. Drummers were simply in higher demand, and for a country boy from Sanjo, Niigata whose only stage experience had been at the local culture center during high school, it was a way to make his name and face known in the Tokyo visual scene. Still, his smile faded a little as he allowed himself to imagine the night, maybe twenty years ago now, when X Japan had played here, at Meguro Rock Maykan, a legend just beginning… and to realize that it was not Toshi's place at center stage that he would be taking tonight.

It was not that Teru disliked the drums; the physical exertion was a blessed release, and if anything the experience had contributed to his ability as a singer, made him more aware of the intricate rhythms that underscored most of his favorite songs. He had become a more well-rounded musician since he had started playing, and for that he was grateful. But he would never be a great drummer, and he had no desire to be. He had come to Tokyo to be a singer, and someday he would be. But for now –

"Teru?"

Teru started. In the mirror, he could see his friend Yasu, his childhood friend and one of La Rose Verboten's guitarists, standing behind him. Though his mouth was set in a gentle smile and his round face wore an expression of kind amusement, his eyes sparkled with a mirthful mockery that made Teru suddenly grateful for the layers of cake makeup he had just applied. How long had Yasu been watching, listening?

"You know, you really ought to try singing backup sometime." Yasu settled onto the stool on Teru's right and pulled his own bleached-blonde hair out of his face with one hand, while swiftly taking up one of Teru's eyeliner pencils in the other. "Your voice isn't bad, you know?"

Teru could feel his cheeks glow crimson beneath the mask of ivory foundation. Ignoring his friend, he began to rummage in his bag for the pieces of his costume. Faux leather shorts and tunic, long-sleeved fishnet bodysuit, red tights that needed to be replaced after his next payday, and…

"Where are my shoes?" Teru looked at Yasu accusingly. It was not beyond his friend to pull some sort of silly prank like this, especially when he knew that Teru was nervous about a show. And the shoes were most definitely not in his bag.

Yasu shrugged. "Aren't those them? Under the table?" He gestured vaguely with his elbow while continuing to apply the makeup he had "borrowed" from Teru's case. "And you never answered my question, Ijima-kun –" he knew that Teru hated to be called by his real name – "Why don't you try singing backup? I don't think Bara would mind. It could be a good experience, singing on stage."

"I don't want to talk about it, Yasu." Teru pulled the fishnet bodysuit – it was more like a leotard, really – over his head, casting a critical eye at his own body in the mirror as he did so. Bara was the singer of La Rose Verboten, and the only reason, in Teru's opinion, that anyone bought tickets to their shows at all. Not that they paid to hear him sing, that is. Bara couldn't sing to save his life, and so he didn't. He screamed, and the girls screamed with him, clawing at his thin but muscular legs, longing to run their fingers through his long, perfectly straight red hair. Bara was everything that Teru hated about visual kei – the looks without the music, the accolades without the effort, the screams without substance.

La Rose Verboten's fans didn't come for the music, and Teru knew it. They came for Bara, and singing for them would be worse than not singing at all.

Yasu put down the tub of glitter gel that he had been holding and turned to look his friend in the eyes. "Look, Teru, I know this isn't perfect, but La Rose is a good band. We have potential, you know? Are we going to get a record deal like this? Probably not. But we can get ourselves known, make connections. Look at Bara. Look at Seika. Hell, look at yourself, Teru! You're the kind of guy that these girls want to see, and as sad as it is, music alone isn't going to cut it in this industry, not anymore." He lowered his voice, though there was no one else in the room. "Look, I think you've got a future, Teru. As a singer," he added, before Teru could object. "But this is a stepping stone, for both of us. My songs are being played… and you could get your voice heard, too, if you wanted to. Think about it, Teru. Singing X in the dressing room isn't going to get you anywhere…"

Teru nodded, but he didn't reply. He had known Yasu since high school; they had moved to Tokyo within a month of each other, and it was thanks to Yasu's introduction that he had been given the chance to play in this band. But sometimes he wondered if his friend really understood him at all. Yasu was everything that Teru was not – confident, easygoing, optimistic. He had already been an excellent guitarist – in Teru's then-uneducated opinion, at least – when Teru had picked up a pair of drumsticks for the first time in his second year of high school, and his personality and musical prowess did a fair job of making up for the fact that he was a good head shorter than Teru and their other bandmates, and nearly twice as big around.

Teru glanced at himself in the mirror again, and a tiny, vain part of him couldn't help but admire the slender curve of his own waistline, the way the tiny pair of black pleather shorts accented the ass that he had never had to work for. He looked the part. He would never admit it to anyone, but Teru knew that he was what the fans wanted to see. But as many times as Yasu had lectured him about the importance of looks, of makeup, of staging and theatrics, Teru could not bring himself to believe that those were enough. He dressed up because he loved it, because the fans expected it, because it _was_ a vital part of their show. Yasu was right. A visual band was nothing without their looks. But they would be nothing without music as well.

"And here they are!"

La Rose Verboten's bassist, a tall, slender man whom Teru knew only as Seika swept into the room, already in full costume. "Set lists, boys!" he announced with a flourish as he leaned dramatically over Teru's shoulder to deposit a single sheet of paper on the table in front of each man, allowing his blue-black ostrich feather boa to fall across Teru's shoulders as he did so.

Seika was, as he often dubbed himself, the band's "token fag." Though he took great pains to avoid any references to his sexuality while in the presence of hopeful female fans, he had no compunction about teasing his bandmates mercilessly when they were alone. He was also a hell of a bassist and an extremely adept hairstylist – his own waist-length blue curls were completely natural, and not much the worse for wear, considering the number of times they had been bleached, dyed, and curled. Teru wasn't entirely comfortable around the mysterious, flamboyant older man – but Seika was a good friend, and a good musician, and Teru would never have admitted his discomfort.

"Oh, Teru!" Seika stroked a loose strand of Teru's dry and damaged hair, pursing his lips in an expression of mock grief. "You really should have these ends cut off. Length isn't everything, you know! Still…" He gazed sidelong at Teru's pink ponytail, as though assessing an irreparable disaster zone. "I suppose I ought to help you get it up. You'll never make curtain at this rate."

For the second time that evening, Teru was profoundly grateful for the makeup that concealed his scarlet cheeks.

Thirty minutes later, Teru's cascade of pink hair resembled something more like a fountain, albeit one that had been frozen in time by two and a half bottles of hairspray and a generous helping of mousse. Yasu had styled his own hair into a blonde explosion that reminded Teru of the hero of some long-forgotten robot _anime_, and was fastening the last buckle on his knee-high vinyl boots when the last two members of La Rose Verboten sauntered into the dressing room in a cloud of cigarette smoke.

"Twenty minutes, guys." Yuu, the lead guitarist and also the leader of the band, paused to rearrange a strand of his own orangey-blond hair. "Crowd's not great. It's what we get for playing second, I guess. We'll just have to hope that a few more fans trickle in between the sets."

Bara, the vocalist, said nothing at all. He seemed immersed in the decades of graffiti that decorated the walls of the dressing room, though Teru would have been willing to bet that it was merely an act, an excuse to avoid conversing with the other guys. Bara had a lot of fans, but he didn't seem to have any friends, and it wasn't too difficult to imagine why.

Teru pulled a cigarette from his bag and lit it, taking care not to smudge his lipstick as he raised it to his mouth. He was glad that the others didn't know him as well as Yasu did, didn't seem to have picked up on the nerves that were running through his system like electric impulses. It was silly, really. This was just another live house, just a stage like any other. The fact that his idols had played here a million years ago didn't change what it was: a stage, an audience, a show just like any other. Sure, legends had played here. But failures had too.

He put out his cigarette and retrieved his drumsticks from his bag. There was no time to worry; the previous band had departed the stage and was making their way out into the lobby. Ten minutes to set the stage – and then the lights would go down and La Rose Verboten would join the ranks of wannabe stars that had played at Meguro Rock Maykan.

No one spoke as the band ascended the narrow flight of stairs in single file, as they tuned their instruments and adjusted microphone stands. The ten minutes they were given for the set change were never enough, and when the curtain flew open at last, necessity and the crowd drove all of the nerves and regret from Teru's mind. He threw himself into the music with a passion, trying not to notice the meager number of fans who had turned up for their set. Trying not to notice that, with all of the musical ability that Yuu, Yasu, and Seika possessed, it was Bara who drew all of the attention, Bara who commanded the squeals of the teenage crowd.

The show was not a bad one, musically speaking, and a few of the girls who had been sitting down for the majority of the set stood up and joined La Rose's own fans in headbanging for the final number. When the curtain closed at last, and the cries of the girls in the front row faded into chattering gossip, Teru couldn't help but breathe a sigh of relief. The rest of the evening would be spent in the lobby, selling CDs and encouraging new fans to come to their next gig, and then it would be drinking until the first train in the morning. Although, Teru considered, it wouldn't be a bad thing to start the night early. He wondered what kind of beer they sold at the convenience store down the street.

"Nice show, Teru." Yuu clapped him on the back, and his smile seemed genuine. "Are you coming to the lobby tonight?" Yuu had always made socializing with the fans optional, but Teru didn't mind it. Most of their regular crowd were nice girls, and though he had heard horror stories of stalkers and harassment from other band members, he couldn't imagine any of La Rose's fans doing anything that would overstep the unspoken line between artist and fan. He nodded an affirmative.

The dressing room was nearly deserted when they returned. The first band of the evening had already repacked their van; Teru had seen a few of the members watching the show from the back of the hall. A few of the members of the final band were applying final touches to their makeup and costumes, and Teru gave them a nod as he sat at the mirror and proceeded to pull the bobby pins out of his hair one at a time. His makeup came off easily, though it was almost a disappointment to watch his beautiful face disappear and another more mundane one take its place. Two weeks until the next show… Two weeks of tying his hair back and waiting on customers at the local 7-11. Two weeks of instant ramen, of late night TV, of the occasional rehearsal. The thought of rehearsals to fill those empty days might have cheered him up a year ago, but lately there had been more arguing that rehearsing going on.

Teru replaced the last piece of his costume into his oversized duffle bag and pulled a plain black tank top over his head in its place. He surveyed the table once more and, satisfied that he had left nothing behind, zipped his bag closed with a sigh. As he did so, a tiny card fluttered to the floor.

Teru bent to pick it up; though no one had given him their business card tonight, it may have belonged to one of his bandmates. "Hey, Yasu?" he called. "Yasu, is this yours?"

It was a plain card, the sort that you could make for a thousand yen at a machine in Shinjuku Station, or maybe a homemade card; the paper was white, plain, a little thicker than standard printer paper, but nothing that screamed professional. Probably something that one of the other bands had made, then. He turned it over.

The only things printed on the card were a telephone number and an email address, both for a cell phone. Below this, in an uneven scrawl that could have belonged to a young child, someone had written a message:

"If you want to sing, call me."

The note was unaddressed and unsigned, but Teru was suddenly sure that it was not for his friend that it had been intended. "If you want to sing, call me." He repeated the message under his breath and began to turn the card over and over again in his hand, as if by doing so he could somehow make something else appear, something that would give some meaning to the cryptic calling card.

Was this a joke? Was the card intended for someone else? Or had someone really heard him singing and… _and what?_ he scolded himself. There had been no one in the room. Unless an invisible talent scout with the penmanship of a five-year-old had been suddenly captured by Teru's dressing-room rendition of "Unfinished"…

Teru smiled and slid the card into his pants pocket. He would have to applaud Yasu for the effort.

* * *

**Author's Notes**

Lyrics to "Unfinished" belong to Yoshiki and X Japan, not to me.


	2. dareka no koe

**Chapter 2: dareka no koe someone's voice**

"Alright guys, that was pretty good." Yuu's tone of voice was a bit less enthusiastic than his words as he glanced at the clock for what must have been the fiftieth time that evening. They had rented the studio for four hours, from six o'clock to ten. It was now nine fifty, and Teru was beginning to understand the band leader's irritation. "We need to run through that new song once more." He shot a wary gaze at Bara. "Be careful of that high note after the key change. I know you can hit it, but you need to hit it every time."

The singer, who had in fact managed to hit the note in question exactly once all evening, positively snarled in reply. Ignoring him, Yuu nodded to Teru, who gave the band their count and listened dispassionately as the song sprung into life around him.

Teru liked the song a lot; it was more melodic than most of either Yuu's or Yasu's compositions, relying heavily on the vocals and guitar to carry it, while he and Seika played a simple but clean rhythm section. But as rehearsal dragged on, he could feel his spirits beginning to flag. Bara simply couldn't hit the notes, Yuu was unwilling to lower the key, and the tension in the room had become stifling. It was almost a relief when the last wail of Yasu's guitar died out, and they were left with no choice but to vacate the rented studio.

Teru dug through his wallet for the two thousand yen that was his share of the studio fee. He had just enough left to go to dinner with the guys – they needed to talk about their new costumes and the set list for the next show – but then it would be back to cup ramen until payday. Their last show had left them in the red, and new costumes didn't come cheap…

"Is Skylark okay with everyone?" Yuu asked, and was greeted by a chorus of "okay" and "fine." They held most of their band meetings at the local family restaurant, which had free refills on soft drinks and a lax attitude toward visual bands that held meetings in the booths long after they had finished their meals.

"Then let's go, boys!" Seika's voice was a little less flirtatious that usual, but it still raised a smile on Teru's face. So they had had a bad rehearsal, so what? That didn't mean that they couldn't accomplish something at the meeting.

They were just out of the door when Bara spoke: "Um, guys?" The others turned to face him. "I can't come. I have to go home."

Yuu's face turned red; it was as though something that had been building up inside of him for a long time had finally snapped. "Excuse me? What do you mean, you can't come?"

"I can't come," the singer repeated, adding as an afterthought, "Sorry." He shrugged and took a few steps in the direction of the train station before Yuu's angry hand on his shoulder stopped him.

"Bara, this meeting has been planned! I told you that I wanted everyone there. And…" He lowered his voice, though the others could still hear him. "It's _your_ costume that we need to talk about. No one else had a problem with my designs…"

Bara shrugged again, tossing a strand of his red hair, which he hadn't even tied back for rehearsal, over his shoulder. "Do whatever you like," he replied. "I'm busy." And before any of them could think of what to say, he was through the ticket gates and onto the Chuo Line platform.

Although Teru had sensed for awhile that the relationship between Yuu and Bara was not a good one, he was shocked. Bara may not have been friendly, but he had made it clear on multiple occasions that he considered himself vital to the band, and would not have typically allowed any meetings to be held without him… Had the criticism of his singing hit too close to home? Teru shook his head. There was something else going on there. Something was rotten in this band… He sighed. La Rose may not be perfect, but it was something. And if Bara quit, that something would likely fall apart before their eyes.

Yuu was apparently having similar thoughts. He sighed. "There's not much point in having a meeting without him, is there?" No one had the strength to argue; there _wasn't _much point in it really, considering that Bara was the only one who ever really had a problem with Yuu's decisions regarding the band. "I'll call him, see if he'll stick around after rehearsal next week. Go home, guys. You sounded good tonight." He straddled his bike and started the engine, his shoulders slightly slumped as he pulled out into the traffic of Kanpachi Doori and was swallowed by a rush of headlights.

Teru didn't move. He didn't want to go home; there was nothing there, just the emptiness of television and a stack of CDs that he had listened to a thousand times each. But there was nothing for him here either. Maybe he would go to karaoke. He couldn't afford it, but it might make him feel a little better to lose himself in a good song and a glass of whiskey. He pulled his wallet out again. _How many cup ramens till next payday?_

"Teru?"

He looked up. Yasu had pulled out his own wallet, as well, and now extended a thousand-yen note in Teru's general direction. "Wh – what's this for?"

Yasu shrugged. "I'm sure I owe you for something. Come on, how many times have you picked up my tab?" He grinned. "My treat, if you still want to do dinner?"

Teru shook his head. "Thanks, Yasu, but you don't have to." He was grateful for the offer, of course, but knew that Yasu's part-time job couldn't have paid much better than his own.

"Okay then, I admit it!" Yasu grinned. "My air conditioner's broken – there's no way I'm going to sit up all night in this heat. And you may not be great company, Teru, but you're better than nothing. How about you, Seika?" He glanced at the bassist, who had already fished his train pass out of his bag.

"Sorry, love." Seika gave Yasu his trademark mock-seductive smile. "I'd like to, but the night is young, and I think I can pick up an extra shift at the club." He waved goodbye and headed toward the station, already deep in cell phone conversation with someone who must have been his supervisor at the nightclub where he worked.

The remaining two members of La Rose Verboten made their way to the restaurant in silence. It was after ten on a weeknight, and the place was nearly deserted. A young, pretty waitress smiled at them and showed them to a corner booth, leaving them a menu and an ashtray and asking them to call for her whenever they had decided.

Without a word, Teru produced a pack of cigarettes and offered one to his friend. Yasu accepted, and for a moment they simply sat, enjoying what Teru considered a well-deserved smoke and trying to find the words to talk about what had just happened.

Yasu spoke first. "He'll come back, you know. He always does."

"Yeah, he probably will." Teru opened the menu and began to flip idly through the pages. "But… I don't know, Yasu. This has been going on for awhile, hasn't it? Yuu and Bara are going in two different directions… and I'm not sure that I want to be a part of either one. I mean… I like working with you. And Seika. And Yuu, for the most part…" He trailed off, unwilling to put his feelings about Bara into words. He was just going to have to trust that Yasu understood him on this one.

"But Bara's impossible."

Teru was stunned; he had never heard Yasu speak negatively about anyone in such an open manner. It didn't do much to calm his nerves. "Yeah…" he replied at last. "And I'm worried about the band."

Yasu laughed, but it was a forced, mirthless sound that seemed completely out of place in the restaurant's brightly artificial atmosphere. "And here I thought you wanted to quit…" he mused. "Are you ready to order? I'll get us a couple of beers. My treat," he amended, before Teru could protest.

The waitress took their order with a smile, but mercifully didn't seem interested in sticking around to chat. Teru wasn't in the mood to deal with women tonight… or men, he considered with a smile, remembering Seika's mock advances.

"So…" Yasu mused, dropping his voice to almost a whisper, "what are you thinking about doing?"

Teru shook his head. He really didn't know. If he left La Rose, he would be right back where he had started – a country boy with a Niigata accent and minimal stage experience. He could try to find another band in search of a drummer; that wouldn't be too difficult, but it also wouldn't bring him any closer to his dream. He could try to find a band in search of a vocalist, but they were few and far between. Replacing a singer was a difficult task, anyway, and he wasn't sure that he wanted to try to fill someone else's shoes. He could start his own band… but he couldn't ask Yasu to quit, and Teru was no composer – without Yasu he had no songs. He knew that his friend felt that he owed a dept to Yuu and La Rose: they had given him a chance in Tokyo, had played a few of his songs and taken him to some of the stages he had always dreamed about. Teru sighed. Maybe he felt a bit of that obligation as well.

"I don't know," he answered at last. "I just don't know."

It wasn't until nearly one, when he stumbled off of the last train and into his one-room apartment, that Teru remembered the business card. He had completely forgotten to ask Yasu about it.

_If you want to sing, call me._

Teru fished the card out of his wallet, where he had put it for safekeeping. The handwriting bothered him; it didn't look like Yasu's, but he supposed that his friend could have distorted his characters intentionally. The email address was an unfamiliar one – it was a J-Phone extension, and the area code on the telephone number marked it as a cell phone number as well, but that told him almost nothing. Half of his friends used J-Phone, and a good half of those had signed up for the new email option. It could have been anyone.

_If you want to sing, call me._

He hadn't really though about the card since the concert, but now, for some reason, it was really bothering him. Teru pulled out his phone and opened the address book feature. He didn't think that Yasu had two phones; all he would have to do is match the number… But the numbers didn't match. Yasu loved to tease his friend, but he wouldn't actually have paid for a second cell phone contract for the sake of a prank. Was it Seika?

But none of the numbers in Teru's address book matched the number on the card. Frustrated, he tossed his phone onto his futon, which he had forgotten to put away that morning, and began to tap the card impatiently against the palm of his hand. What if it wasn't a real number at all? Yasu could have just made something up – but why? It didn't make sense. Why would anyone care if he called some made-up phone number? Had the card been intended for someone else, after all?

He closed his eyes and took a deep breath, then picked up the phone and dialed.

Someone answered on the second ring. "Yes?"

Teru jumped, jerked the phone away from his ear, and ended the connection. He hadn't actually expected anyone to pick up. His heart was beating a mile a minute; the phone lay like a sleeping serpent in his hand.

It rang.

He let it ring. The answering machine would pick up, and he would be able to hear the message without having to actually speak to whoever was on the other end. But nothing happened. The phone continued to ring; had he forgotten to turn on the voice mail? Teru began to press buttons; surely something would terminate the call!

The ringing stopped. Teru could not have been sure whether he had stopped it, or whether the voice on the other end had simply given up. His hand was shaking; the phone had suddenly become alien, terrifying. The voice had not been Yasu's, or Seika's. The handwriting was that of a child, but the voice had been undeniably adult.

Teru forced himself to sit down. He shouldn't have had that beer; though he wasn't exactly drunk, his head was swimming and he couldn't think straight. It was probably a mistake, after all. Why was he so scared to answer the phone?

He was still holding the card in his right hand. A cell phone number. An email address. _If you want to sing, call me._

He opened the mail program on his phone. All he had to do was send a mail… send a mail to the voice, explain that it was a mistake, that the voice's business card had somehow ended up in Teru's bag, and that he would gladly return it to it's intended recipient, if…

But the screen sprung to life before Teru had a chance to begin typing. A message had appeared on the screen: "Incoming Mail – 1 New Message."

Teru's hand shook as he opened the message. He had given the voice his phone number, and since they were both on J-Phone, that was enough.

The message was short: "Is this Teru? I heard you sing on Sunday. Please call me; I can help you."

Teru stared at the message for what seemed like a long time before he hit the "Reply" key. "I'm sorry to be rude, but who are you? I appreciate the thought, but I'm not a vocalist."

The response came almost immediately: "You should be. I can teach you."

The phone began to ring, and this time Teru answered. "Hello?"

"You sang beautifully on Sunday."

"Hello?" Teru repeated. "Who is this?"

"I am… a teacher. An agent? A friend, perhaps." The voice was deep, masculine, sensual in a way that Seika would have envied. It made Teru distinctly uncomfortable.

"Look," Teru argued, though the spark of hope that burned in his heart warned him against it, "I think you want Bara. I'm not the singer. I'm the drummer – the one with pink hair?"

"And whose choice was that?"

Teru blushed.

The voice continued. "I heard you singing in the dressing room. You have talent. I would like to teach you."

"Are you from a record label?" Teru did not dare to hope.

The voice hesitated. "I have connections," he answered at last. "I would like to teach you. Will you see me?"

Teru's palms had grown sweaty, and his face was flushed. His heart seemed to be beating at twice its normal pace, and his body was on fire. He felt dirty – this was stupid, dangerous! But he didn't want the conversation to stop. "Where?" he asked.

"Will you come to my home? I know that it is a strange request, but…"

"Where do you live?" The words were out of his mouth before he had time to consider.

The voice had obviously not been expecting agreement so quickly. "I…" he hesitated. "I live in Meguro. Kami-Osaki."

"Near Rock Maykan?" Teru ventured.

"About… five minutes away? By foot." The voice seemed to have lost some of its earlier confidence. "I – I'll send you the address. If you'll come."

Teru swallowed, hard. "You want to give me singing lessons?"

"Yes."

"You have connections in the industry?"

"I do."

Teru took a deep breath. What did he have to lose? "Okay," he whispered at last. "When?"

"My schedule is… flexible. You tell me."

Teru glanced at his desktop calendar. Today was Tuesday. He had work all day tomorrow, but on Thursday he finished at noon. "I work the morning shift on Thursday. I can meet you in the afternoon?"

"That's fine." The voice had returned to its throaty, sensual self. "Call me when you arrive at Meguro Station. I'll give you directions from there."

"Okay."

"Goodnight, Teru."

The connection went dead. Teru lay on his futon, staring at his phone for a long time before he finally dropped into uneasy sleep.

* * *

**Notes**

Thanks to all of you who have encouraged me to write and post this fic – I'd list all of your names, but I'd miss someone! So you know who you are, and thanks.

A few explanatory notes:

Kanpachi Doori is a major road that runs through the Western part of Tokyo. Doori means road or street, but I decided to leave it in Japanese, it just sounds better to me that way.

J-Phone was a real cell phone company that, at the time of this story, was the second-largest cellular provider in Japan. They have since been bought out by Vodafone, and no longer exist under that name, so I figured it was safe to throw their name around. In 2000, the concept of email and text messages on phones was around, but it was a new one… it may be a bit of a stretch to say that ALL of my broke musician characters have signed up for mail service, but it's not impossible. Consider it a necessary plot device.


	3. wasurerarenai

**Chapter 3: wasurerarenai -can't forget-**

He wore the mask nearly all the time now. In another lifetime, it had been an embarrassment, an intrusion. But at some point the intrusion had become an escape, the escape had become a crutch, and the crutch… the crutch had become his face.

He removed it now, and allowed the cool comfort of night to take its place.

The boy had called.

He had not dared to hope. A part of him had even hoped that the boy would not call, that the moment of childish longing in which he had scrawled that note would allow itself to be forgotten. But nothing was ever forgotten, was it?

And the boy had called.

That voice… it had been childish, yes, but pure. A voice that could not have screamed or screeched if it had wanted to. A voice that soared, that needed no falsetto… but he could not help wondering what the boy's falsetto sounded like. _The voice to sing our songs._ He was sure of it.

Teru. The child's name was Teru – it had been easy enough to find him, then, rifling through the pack of flyers until he found the name, the face… And then he had come onstage, and if only for a moment, the pain of the past five years had flown away.

_I was attracted to him._

The thought made him ill.

* * *

**Notes:**

Not a lot! Thanks to bee for reassuring me that this chapter wasn't too short, and thanks to all who have read and reviewed!


	4. yami no hanabira

**Chapter 4: Yami no Hanabira - petals of darkness -**

Thursday morning dawned bright and clear, but by the time Teru had completed the first hour of his shift, the sky had turned from blue to grey to black, and the rain began to pour down. Business slowed, then stopped. Stretches of twenty, thirty minutes passed with no customers at all, and Teru quickly discovered that cleaning and restocking, though they kept his hands busy, were not enough to occupy his mind.

He was nervous, and the nerves felt more like stage fright than like anything else, falling somewhere between anticipation and fear. More than once he considered canceling his appointment with "the voice," walking out of the whole deal as though he had never seen the little card. If his mother had still been speaking to him, he imagined that she would have cautioned him against taking singing lessons from mystery voices in the heart of the dreaded "big city." But then again, it had been a long time since Teru had given a damn what his mother thought.

Time crawled by, and the four hours of his shift began to feel more like eight or twelve. He sold a few plastic umbrellas, a girly magazine, a can of coffee. Each time, the clock on the register crept closer and closer to noon, and the butterflies in his stomach continued to breed and multiply. It didn't help that he had no idea what was waiting for him in Meguro. Before a show, it helped to run through the set list in his mind, imagine playing through the set without a mistake. But today there was no way to prepare himself for what was to come. He didn't even know exactly where in Meguro he was going.

At 11:56, Teru rang up his last sale of the day: an egg salad sandwich and a can of beer. At 11:57, he made a final round of the store, replacing a comic book that had worked its way into the ladies' magazine section and throwing away a receipt that someone had dropped on the floor. At 11:58, he found himself staring at the register clock, wishing that it marked seconds as well as minutes and hours. At 11:59, he retreated into the back room and retrieved a change of clothes from the bag that he had brought with him. The voice had claimed to have connections; whether that was true or not, Teru figured that it would be to his advantage to look the part of the star that he dreamed of becoming.

His fingers trembled as he unbuttoned his 7-11 uniform shirt and replaced it with a tight purple t-shirt accented by silver stars down one side. His plain white uniform pants fell away, and in their place he pulled on a pair of black and silver designer jeans with holes in the knees held together by safety pins. He glanced at himself in the mirror over the sink. _Not bad_. Without makeup, his face was nothing remarkable, but at least he looked more like a musician in these clothes.

At 12:03, he left the back room and grimaced. It was still raining, and he hadn't bothered to watch the weather forecast today. If it had only been a matter of returning to his own apartment, he would have ducked his head and ran. But it wouldn't be polite to show up at a stranger's home – in and of itself unheard of – only to drip all over the floor. He coughed up the five hundred yen for an umbrella, and stepped out into the storm.

The station was only a five-minute walk away, but by the time Teru stepped through the ticket gates and onto the covered platform, his pants were soaked from the knees down and his socks seemed to have absorbed enough water to fill a small lake. When the train came, it was unusually crowded – people who typically rode bikes or motorcycles were being forced out of the rain and onto public transportation – but Teru didn't mind. He was content to stand by the door, looking out the window as almost-suburban Koenji became tired, industrial Nakano, and finally the neon playland that was Shinjuku.

At Shinjuku he transferred to the Yamanote loop line, and the skyscrapers faded into the foliage of Yoyogi Park, which then gave way to the pop culture paradise of Harajuku and Shibuya, and then to the upscale elegance of Ebisu and Meguro. Teru didn't come to this area very often, and when he did it was usually for a concert of some description. It was easy to forget that Meguro was primarily a wealthy neighborhood of ritzy apartment buildings and five-star hotels and restaurants, but now that he was thinking about it, the fact made him more than a little nervous. He'd never really met anyone rich or famous outside of a fan club event or record signing, and he wasn't sure how he would react if his mystery contact turned out to be a bona-fide celebrity, or even an important executive.

But it was too late to turn back now. The train closed its doors and continued on its southbound course, leaving Teru staring after it with a dry throat and sweaty palms.

He pulled his cell phone out of his pocket and dialed.

Whoever was on the other end answered almost immediately. "Yes?"

"Th – this is Teru." His own voice sounded strange, childish. "I'm at the station."

"Good. Go out the west exit, as though you are going to the live house."

"Okay." He allowed his ticket to be swallowed by the automatic gate and fumbled to open his umbrella with one hand, while holding onto the phone with the other. "Should I go up the hill?"

"Yes."

This street was familiar, though it looked a bit different in the rain. He passed a movie theatre, a Freshness Burger restaurant, a convenience store. When he could see the live house's neon sign, unlit in the early afternoon, he broke the silence. "I'm at Rock Maykan."

"That's fine." The voice seemed totally devoid of emotion. "Take the second right, at the top of the hill. The building is called Green Heights Meguro. It will be on your left. I live in apartment 108."

The connection fell silent, and Teru hung up the phone.

The voice's directions were flawless, and Green Heights Meguro was easy enough to find; it was a large, elegant apartment building, four stories tall with wrought-iron balconies that faced the street. The main entrance was unlocked, and Teru slipped easily into a lobby area that contained little but a wall of burnished brass postboxes. Each one bore a tiny lock and a black and gold nameplate with the room number and family name of the resident embossed on it. Teru thought of his own postbox, which would not close all the way, much less lock, and on which he had written his own name with a black magic marker. He was more than a little out of place here.

Out of curiosity, he glanced at the postbox for room 108 – if he knew nothing else about his mysterious contact, at least he might learn the man's name. But the box in the lower right-hand corner, next to 107 and below 208, was conspicuously blank. It appeared as though the voice had just moved in.

Teru took a deep breath, and continued into the first-floor hallway. The building was clean, well-maintained, and for the most part cheery. Most of the residents had designed custom nameplates or welcome signs for their doors, and Teru's stomach began to growl at the aroma of someone's home-cooked lunch. It was a little hard to imagine anyone involved with visual kei living in a place like this… but then again, if Teru had had money and a family, he might not have minded living here either.

When he reached room 108, however, he began to doubt that the author of the mysterious note lived here at all. The front door was as devoid of any identifying information as the postbox had been, and the one visible window was disturbingly dark. It seemed to have been covered with something black – a dust cover, perhaps, designed to keep the room clean until it was time to show it to a prospective tenant? In any event, the place looked uninhabited.

_But this is Green Heights Meguro, room 108_. The directions had been quite specific – what if this was a prank, after all? But Teru had come all the way here, had given up an afternoon off that he could have spent in the studio. And besides, the voice had piqued his interest. He wasn't going to leave until he knew what this whole mess had been about.

Teru rang the doorbell, but the room remained dark and silent. His phone, however, began to ring almost immediately.

"Hello?"

There was a hint of a laugh in the mysterious voice. "The door is unlocked."

Teru tried the door and found that it opened easily, though the interior of the apartment was only slightly less desolate than the outside had been. The entrance hall was dark and empty, and once more he considered the possibility that this might all have been someone's idea of a joke. "Hello?" he called into the darkness.

The voice answered. "The door is open. Come in."

Teru kicked his shoes off as he stepped into the empty hallway, turning them around to face the door. As strange as this situation was, he still felt as though he should behave like a proper guest. As his host did not seem to own an umbrella stand – or anything else, for that matter – he leaned his dripping umbrella against the wall in the position that seemed the least likely to leave a spot on the wallpaper.

There were four doors leading off of the short hallway. The two on the left were dark and closed. The door on his immediate right was also closed, and considerably narrower than the others; Teru guessed that it led to the bathroom or washroom. The door at the far end of the hallway, however, stood slightly ajar, and while it was still not what Teru would have considered bright, a faint, flickering light seemed to be dancing somewhere within.

His hand trembled as he grasped the doorknob and pulled.

"Welcome."

Teru jumped. After the emptiness of the entrance hall, he had hardly been expecting this room to look as… _lived in_ as it did. It was a western-style room with hardwood floors and two full-length windows, both of which were covered with heavy black curtains. To his left, a long black sofa was covered with books of sheet music, CDs, and other papers, scattered in a way that would make it nearly impossible to find a place to sit. A low coffee table was similarly decorated, and some of the mess had spilled over onto the floor. The window on the far wall was almost entirely obscured by racks of mixing equipment and guitar and bass amps and effects, though the only guitar in the room was a wreck of shattered wood and twisted strings that looked as though it had been introduced to the nastier aspects of an especially large monitor.

In the far right-hand corner of the room, a dark figure sat before a flickering computer monitor. _The voice_. He was dressed entirely in what appeared to be heavy black robes, and his face was obscured by a cloud of blue hair, so bright that it must have been either freshly dyed or a wig. The figure did not rise to greet Teru, or even look in his direction, but raised a single pale hand in warning.

"Stop. Come no closer." The tone of voice was not unfriendly, but it commanded obedience. Teru stopped in his tracks, craning his neck a little in a vain attempt to catch a better glimpse of his host. "That's fine. Now, sing for me."

Teru was taken aback. "What?" he stammered.

"You came to sing, didn't you? If I am to help you, I need to hear your voice. Now, close the door and sing for me."

Teru closed the door as he was told, but there were more questions than songs flooding his mind at the moment. He still had no answers regarding the mysterious note or its author, and although he had never had a proper singing lesson, he didn't imagine that they were usually anything like this. "I… I'm sorry… um, sir. What should I sing?"

"Anything you like." The figure turned to face the computer, and pressed a single key. A note sounded in the tense atmosphere. "Unfinished."

Teru began, grateful that he had been given at least the first note. He wasn't used to singing a capella, or without a microphone… or in a stranger's apartment. His voice sounded weak and thin, and after a few bars, he was no longer entirely sure if he was on key.

"Stop!"

"I – I'm sorry!" The words came out in a rush. "I'm not used to singing without music, I – "

The reply was cold. "I'll not have you holding back, do you understand me? I'll not have you wasting my time."

Teru nodded, though he was fairly sure that the gesture went unseen.

"This room has been soundproofed," his host continued. "No one can hear you. Now, sing for me the way that you would sing for the world. Kurenai!"

It was another X Japan song, but a louder, faster, heavier one. A difficult song to sing, even with a proper accompaniment, and his would-be teacher seemed unwilling to provide any more than a single note. Still, Teru tried, his confidence buoyed a little by the knowledge that the people in the apartment next door would be able to hear his feeble attempt.

"That's fine." Once more, the mysterious stranger stopped him before he had reached the first chorus. "Art of Life."

Teru raised an eyebrow in disbelief. _Art of Life?_ He hoped that he wouldn't be allowed to sing much of this one either; Art of Life was nearly thirty minutes long, and the lyrics were entirely in English.

"Desert rose, why do you live alone?

If you are sad, I'll make you leave this life.

Are you white, blue or bloody red?

All can see is drowning in cold grey sand

The winds of time – "

The dark figure raised a hand once more, and Teru stopped, relieved. "Very well." The man in black turned to face Teru at last, though his face was still shrouded in shadow. "You are not an English speaker, I see, but your pronunciation is not bad. Do you speak any other languages? French, perhaps?"

Teru shook his head. "No, I don't. I – I only finished high school… sir. And English wasn't my best subject."

His host seemed to consider this fact. "That is a shame. English, French… those two in particular, but any European language, really, can be a great asset to a visual kei vocalist. Still, your pronunciation is not bad. We can work with it."

He turned back to the computer. "One more song." He pressed another key, and Teru could see now that the keyboard was not a computer keyboard, but a nearly full-sized electric piano that had been plugged into some sort of composition software. Once more, he raised a single hand and pressed only a single button, but this time, a full and beautiful accompaniment swelled into being in the dark and crowded music room.

"La Rose Verboten's new single," the man proclaimed. "Yami no Hanabira."

And he began to sing, his voice filling the room with all of the sensual warmth that his speech had promised and more. The song was a sad one, but seemed somehow full of hope. It was about a bright and beautiful flower that had faded to become "yami no hanabira," petals of night. Teru was not sure if the song was a lament or a love song – were petals of night beautiful? Or merely the remains of something that had once been lovely? It was the perfect visual rock ballad – beautiful in its ambiguousness, tragic in its confusion. And the voice…

_If he has a voice like that, why doesn't he sing it himself?_

"Yami no hanabira ga

Koi no hai ni naru

Subete wo hiroeba

Kitto, ai ga sakikaeru!"

The song ended as perfectly as it had began, neither trailing off indefinitely nor ending abruptly, as so many of the songs that Teru had heard in the indies scene tended to do. It was a hit song, a number one single – the sort of ballad that would bring in fans who cared nothing for the makeup or the fishnets or the hair. It was the sort of song that could make a star out of a nobody, and Teru would have given anything to sing it.

"It's yours," whispered the voice, and its owner raised his head to look Teru in the eyes for the first time.

Teru started. Beneath the cloud of blue hair, the man behind the voice was absolutely beautiful – at least, so was the side of his face that Teru could see. His skin was pale and flawless, his left cheekbone high and elegant, his left eyebrow sculpted to perfection. He wore makeup, but it was not heavy. Teru could tell that his eyelashes would have been nearly as long without the mascara, his lips nearly as dark and well-defined without the lipstick. The entire right side of his face, however, was obscured by a silver mask.

It was a beautiful stage prop, obviously custom-made to mimic exactly the contours of this man's natural face in a liquid silver that could have been well-polished platinum or steel, but in reality must have been some lighter material. It covered a little more than half of the man's forehead, his entire nose, and infringed a little upon the right corner of his perfect lips. _But why?_ Teru could not understand why such a beautiful man would want to cover the perfection that he had been gifted with – especially in the comfort of his own home. But he didn't ask. He couldn't. It was not his place.

"It's yours," the masked man repeated. "The song – take it. It's the song that will make you a star."

Teru was speechless. He shook his head. "No…" the words came at last. "I can't… I'm not a singer. What about – what about Bara?"

"Leave Bara to me."

"What does that mean?"

The masked stranger did not answer, but continued to hold Teru's gaze. His expression was unreadable – almost blank, almost uncaring… but not. Teru felt his face begin to flush red, and quickly diverted his gaze to his own feet.

"You play next Sunday?"

Teru nodded.

"Very well. Can you learn the song in time? Here." He picked up a folder that had been lying beside the keyboard and extended it to Teru. "You can read music, I assume?"

Teru blushed again as his hand brushed the masked man's. "Um… a little," he answered, hesitantly. It had been a long time since his mother had finally allowed him to quit taking piano lessons.

His host did not seem to notice his discomfort. "Very well, then. Share this with the others. You may tell them that you wrote it, if you like. Or tell them the truth. It doesn't matter to me."

Apparently finished with the conversation, he turned back to the computer and began to manipulate some part of the accompaniment he had just played. Teru noticed that he manipulated the mouse with his left hand – it seemed appropriate, somehow, that this strange and evidently reclusive composer should be left-handed. Everything else about him was certainly… different.

"The door is unlocked. You may let yourself out."

But Teru hesitated in the doorway. He would not be rude, but he could not leave without satisfying at least some small part of his curiosity. "Wait," he ventured. "Before I go… what's your name?"

Although it was difficult to be certain, Teru thought that he saw the strange man's shoulders stiffen. "My name?" he repeated. "My name is… Rei," he said at last. "My name is Rei."

* * *

**Notes:  
**Quite a few this time around. First of all, the lyrics to Art of Life belong to X Japan, not me. (Both Art of Life and Unfinished are written in English, by the way, I can't even take translation credit) 

The lyrics to Yami no Hanabira, however, are mine. A loose translation follows:

"Petals of darkness

Become love's ashes

If we pick them all up,

Certainly pure love will bloom again"

(koi and ai both mean love, but koi is love for love's own sake, and ai is love for the sake of one's partner… sort of. It's hard to explain, anyway, don't try to learn Japanese from my lyrics and chapter titles, I'm using it purely for effect!)

All of the train stations and town names mentioned are real, and the descriptions are as accurate as my knowledge and writing ability allow. Rei's apartment, however, is of course not real; I have no idea where you would really end up if you followed those directions.

And a note about character names… all of my names mean something. Rei's name has no connection to Reirei at PPN, it's a real Japanese name and Reirei, if you're reading this, I'm sorry if it seems like I stole your handle! Rei can mean ghost, spirit, zero, cold, thanks… many things, and most of them are appropriate to the character. It's also a fairly common name for visual band members.


	5. ibara

**Adknowledgements:** The list of people who have helped me with this chapter and this fic in general is enormous. A very special thanks to everyone on PPN, especially those who have been encouraging me in the chat lately! Thanks to all of my readers and reviewers, I really enjoy hearing what you think of my baby. I know it's different, and I'm so glad you've given it a shot. Thanks to stargazerlily, for letting me bounce ideas off her in RL. Thanks to all of the bands that I've known, staffed for, toured with etc. There aren't that many. But they all are in this story in some small way. Now, onto the chapter!

**Chapter 5: ibara -thorns -**

Teru couldn't get the melody out of his head, and by the time he finally gave up trying to pick out an accompaniment on his own underpowered and undersized keyboard, it was threatening to drive him insane. It was not the song itself that was bothering him; that would have been too easy. Silly commercial jingles, inane pop hits – those were merely mindlessly infuriating. But Teru might actually have enjoyed humming "Yami no Hanabira" under his breath as he did his laundry that evening – if only its composer had been anyone else.

There was nothing wrong with the song itself. Sure, it was overblown and desperately melodramatic, but that was what visual power ballads _were_. It bothered Teru because he didn't know what to do with it. He couldn't show it to the guys – they would never believe that Teru, who had never written a note in his life, had suddenly turned out a showstopper that made Yuu's and Yasu's compositions look like the work of children. And the truth would be no more convincing: _No, I didn't write it. My new voice teacher, who by the way wears a mask and gives lessons for free, wrote the hit of the decade and just gave it to me._

Which brought him to another point that had been bothering him – Rei hadn't actually _taught_ him anything at all, had he? Teru had not sung the equivalent of a single song during the course of their "lesson" – had the entire purpose of their meeting been to give him this score? But Rei was gorgeous, talented, and – though Teru wasn't sure that there'd been any need to show off – obviously needed no help with costuming. Why didn't he just sing it himself?

Teru had never seen Rei before, he was sure of that. At least, not if he wore that mask onstage. Anyone with enough money to live in a luxury apartment in Meguro could have covered every visual live house and CD shop in Tokyo with flyers, if he had wanted to. And with a face and a costume like that, flyers would have been enough to bring in the fans.

_Unless he isn't in a band at all._

Of course, he also had to consider that the mask may have been exactly what it seemed: a disguise. Maybe the face that it hid was_ too_ beautiful, too famous to be seen by a young, mediocre indies drummer.　But if Rei had really been a famous singer, wouldn't he have recognized the voice?

Teru was giving himself a headache. It was definitely time to think about something else. He pulled a CD from the shelf and, turning the volume on his stereo up as loud as he dared at this time of night, began to run hot water in the shower.

The CD was a newer one, by a band that he wasn't very familiar with, but he did his best to sing along as the hot shower carried him away, as it always did, to the stage and the crowd. When the lyrics failed him, he continued to belt out a wordless melody, and when that, too, became inaudible beneath the roar of the water, he just sang.

His mind began to wander: work all day tomorrow, rehearsal on Monday night, the show on the following Sunday. The show the previous Sunday… His first show in Tokyo… His last show in Niigata, and the girl he had slept with afterwards, just because he was in a band and he could. She had lain in the bed afterwards like a cold, dead fish… but a cold, dead fish with long blonde hair who had told him that he was a sexy rock star, and he had liked it, though it made him sick to his stomach to remember.

Teru turned off the water, and began to attack his hair with a handful of cheap shampoo. Damn stuff wouldn't lather, but he'd already bought the bottle, and would need a fresh dye job soon too. He'd seen an ad on a bus the other day for a hair salon that offered a professional shampoo, by itself, for a thousand yen. If only he had a thousand yen to spare…

The phone rang. Teru swore. He'd forgotten that Yuu was supposed to call about Monday's rehearsal, and he couldn't very well answer the phone with his hair hanging in a soapy mess down his back. He leaned back and let the insufficient lather wash away, at once cursing the lack of water pressure in metropolitan Tokyo and thanking it for giving him a few more moments in the shower when he should be hurrying to return the phone call. He worked a glob of conditioner into his hair and waited for what he suspected was far less than the recommended 60 seconds before washing it out and turning off the water.

He wrapped a towel around his head like a turban, and had just tied another around his waist when the phone rang again. This time it was the mail chime; Yuu must have assumed that Teru was on the train or at work and tried to reach him that way. "Just a second, just a second…" he muttered to himself as he rushed out of the shower and into the main room of his apartment.

He retrieved the phone from its charger and opened the mail folder. He blinked, re-read the message header, and blinked again. The mail wasn't from Yuu at all; it was from Rei.

"Thank you for coming today. When is your next rehearsal?"

Teru closed the message without replying, and brought up the call history. He was surprisingly relieved to see that the call, at least, had been from Yuu. Rehearsal. Monday night. This was something that he could deal with, something that was easily explained. He hit the redial button, and Yuu answered on the second ring.

"Sorry," Teru apologized. "I was in the shower. Did you get a studio for Monday?"

"Koenji, from eight to twelve." His tone was apologetic. "It's late, but Bara has to work till seven, and we really need the practice." A hint of distaste crept into Yuu's voice at the mention of Bara, and though Teru did not dare to question the relationship between his band's founding members, he wondered again what exactly had happened between them to turn that particular friendship sour.

"No problem." And it wasn't. The studio was close enough to Teru's apartment that he could walk or ride his bike there; as long as catching the last train wasn't a concern, he didn't mind late rehearsals. "And… Yuu?"

"Yes?"

"Um… I have some… ideas. For the band." His moment of courage vanished, and he stumbled over the words. He had wanted to tell Yuu about the song, he really had… _But I'm not a composer. And they all know that._ "Um… if we have time on Monday, I thought that maybe we could…"

On the other end of the phone, Yuu laughed. "Sure, Teru. You don't have to be nervous about it, either. You're a member of this band too. Let me know if you ever think of anything. On Monday, then?"

"Yeah, Monday," echoed Teru, and he hung up the phone.

He debated ignoring Rei's message. It would be easier to pretend that their "lesson" had never happened, to forget the song and the mask and the voice, and keep being the drummer for La Rose Verboten, as he had always been.

But it would have been easier to stay in Sanjo and work for the gas company like his father had too, wouldn't it? And Rei was every bit as mysterious and alluring as Tokyo had been, once upon a time in that other lifetime. Maybe this wouldn't change anything – but Teru believed that somehow it would. Whoever Rei was, he was somebody. And it wasn't going to do any harm to write to him, to talk to him, to see…

Teru took a deep breath, then re-opened the mail folder and replied to the message.

It was not until he had turned off the phone and climbed into bed that he remembered Rei's words: "Leave Bara to me," and wished he hadn't.

* * *

He had half-expected a reply to be waiting for him the next morning, but Teru did not hear from Rei again until Monday evening. He was standing in the entranceway, one shoe off and one shoe on, on the way to rehearsal when his phone rang. Shoving his foot into the remaining boot, he answered the phone with one hand and grabbed his keys with the other. He wasn't exactly running late, but he wasn't going to be early for rehearsal either.

"Hello?"

He had not bothered to look at the screen before answering, but he had been fairly sure that the call would be from one of his bandmates.

"Teru." His heart leapt into his throat at the last voice he had been expecting to hear. "Good luck at your rehearsal."

"Ahhh…" Teru grasped for something to say. "Um, thanks."

A long silence followed. Teru was just beginning to wonder if the connection had been lost, when Rei spoke again. "I called to ask you a question. Do you have any plans on Sunday night? After the concert?"

Teru hesitated before answering. Sometimes the band went drinking after a show, but no one had mentioned anything yet about an uchiage. "No," he said. "I don't think so."

"Will you come to my house again?"

Teru's hand shook; he would have dropped the key, had it been any more than halfway out of the lock.. Go to Rei's apartment again? He wanted to, though he wasn't sure why. And he was also afraid to, though he wasn't sure that there was a very good reason for that either. His gut reaction was to accept the invitation, but it didn't seem appropriate. Rei was still a stranger, and their first "lesson" had been more than a little awkward.

"Um…" Teru fished around for an ambiguous answer. "Why don't you come to the show, instead?"

"Oh, I will. I wouldn't miss the opportunity to see you onstage again." Rei sounded as though he were reciting a well-practiced speech. "But I watch from the balcony. I won't be able to speak with you there, and I would like to give you another lesson, talk about your performance. Will you come?"

"Um… okay." Teru took a deep breath. "Yeah. I'll come." Once more, he felt as though he had done something forbidden. It was the fifteen-year-old thrill of his first smoke, the seventeen-year-old thrill of his first fuck… and why? He shook his head in disbelief. Had he really developed some silly fanboy infatuation after hearing one song? _Damn_.

"I'm looking forward to it then." And without even a goodbye, the voice was gone.

Teru looked up, and realized that he had been waiting at a crosswalk where the signal was already green. The clock on his phone read 7:56, and he was still a good ten minute walk from the studio. Tossing his phone into his bag, Teru picked up his pace and eventually broke into a full run.

Eight minutes later, out of breath and exhausted, Teru burst into the studio and, for a moment, was relieved to find that rehearsal hadn't started without him. "Sorry… I'm late…" he gasped. "Hey Yasu, Seika, Yuu…" He glanced around the room, and a chill ran up his spine. "Where's Bara?"

Yuu shrugged in what might have been an effort at nonchalance, but his lips were set in a thin, angry line.

Yasu shrugged. "Give him a few minutes. He got off at seven. Maybe they kept him late?"

Seika looked up from turning his bass and smiled, though his good spirits seemed a little forced. "Fashionably late. It's not always a bad thing." He laughed, but the atmosphere in the room was tense.

Teru nodded, trying not to think too much about Rei and what might have been a threat against La Rose Verboten's singer. As much as Teru disliked the man, he didn't want to see Bara hurt. But there wasn't much that he could do, except wait, and act as though nothing had happened. Whatever else Rei was, he was Teru's secret, at least for now. At least until…

_Until what?_ Teru wasn't sure.

He opened his bag and dug out a pair of drumsticks. It would just be a waste of time and money to sit around waiting for Bara; he could practice, at least, while he waited.

"Hey, what's this?"

Teru felt a rush of blood color his face, and this time he didn't have the makeup to protect him. A page of the score, a page of "Yami no Hanabira" had fluttered out of his bag, and Yasu was holding it, looking at it… reading it….

"Teru, who is this?" his friend asked.

_Leave Bara to me._

Teru bit his lip, shutting out the voice in his head. "I… I don't know."

"Let me see it." Yuu put his guitar on one of the studio's stands and peered over Yasu's shoulder at the piece of score. Teru could see him mouthing the lyrics, trying to figure out what the melody would sound like. "Do you have the rest?"

"Yes?" It came out sounding like a question.

Yuu's eyes grew wide as he flipped through the score, though he didn't say anything. He handed it to Yasu, who picked up his guitar and began to pick out a bit of the intro. He made a mistake, stopped, and repeated the phrase again at a slightly slower pace.

"Damn. This is… this is really tough." Yasu gave the remaining pages of the score to Seika, but kept repeating the bit of introduction over and over again, stopping every few bars to try a new fingering or a different position.

Seika glanced at the score and nodded, intrigued. "The bassline is… intense. But not impossible. Who is this, Teru?"

"I – I don't know," he lied again. "I don't know the artist."

A flicker of recognition passed across Yuu's face. "Teru, did you write this?" The studio grew very quiet; all eyes were on Teru.

"No," he whispered. "No, I didn't write it. It's…" He took a deep breath. "A friend. A friend wrote it, and said we could use it. If you guys want to, I mean."

Seika nodded slowly. Yasu furrowed his brow, and Teru knew that he was running through a mental list of their common friends, trying to think of someone with the ability to write such a piece, and the insanity to give it away. Yuu, however, merely picked up his guitar and began to play the intro that Yasu had been practicing.

"Let's do it," he said. "Let's give it a try while we're waiting for Bara. Yasu, were you playing Guitar 1 or Guitar 2?"

Seika offered the score to the two guitarists, who flipped ahead to the solo. Yasu nodded. "Doesn't look like it matters much, does it? It's a twin solo… both parts are killers."

Teru knew that he could not play the drumline as written; his palms had grown cold and sweaty and his face was still flushed. He was pretending to be absorbed in tuning an already-in-tune snare when the door flew open and Bara stormed in. His face was nearly as red as his hair, and in his clenched fist he led a pack of papers, which he waved angrily in Yuu's face.

"What the hell is this? What – what the _fuck_ are you trying to do? You… you…"

Yuu looked up from the music, his face a mixture of genuine surprise and anger. "Bara. What are you talking about? Calm down. What is that?" He tried to indicate the papers, but Bara snatched them away and continued to wave them furiously in the air.

"You have a problem with me, you tell me? Got it?" Bara's shouts were beginning to resemble more and more the screeching he employed on stage. "Sending me this shit in the mail… that's low. That's, that's…"

But he didn't seem to know what, exactly, it was.

"Bara, calm down!" Yasu interjected. "None of us even know what you are holding there. I don't even think that any of us know your home address! Who sent you what? Let's just - let's sit down and talk - "

"No!" The singer declared, his face growing redder and redder. "No more talking, no more meetings! I quit!" He spat the last in Yuu's general direction. "I'm sick of this shit – I _am_ this band! Have fun trying to sell tickets without me." He threw the papers at Yuu, and stormed out.

"Bara, wait!" Yuu picked up two or three of the offending pieces of paper, and followed his singer out of the room.

Teru bent to pick up one of the papers that had landed less than a meter from the drumset, and gave it a cursory glance. It was an enquete, one of the questionnaires that the fans filled out about the band after every show. The name and address lines were blank, and only one of the questions had been answered. It had not, however, been written at the live house. Someone had taken the damn thing home and typed it.

"Who types an enquete?" Yasu asked quietly. He, too, had picked one up and was reading it to himself.

"'The show was excellent,'" Seika read, "'but it really is a shame about your vocalist. Find someone who can carry a tune, and your next show might actually draw more than three people.' That's just mean…"

"This one's worse." Yasu quoted, "'Your songs cover a wide range both musically and emotionally. Unfortunately your singer does not. Either the voice or the songs must go, and I heartily recommend the former.'"

Teru cleared his throat and read his aloud, too. "'Were it not for your singer's lamentable lack of talent, I would be anticipating your first major album within a year.'"

It was admirable, really. The messages were petty, cheap attacks on Bara's voice – but they had worked. Despite the fact that they hadn't actually been written by fans, or as Bara seemed to suspect, by his bandmates, they attacked him where he was weak. Where he knew that he was weak, but would never admit it. Except for Teru himself, Bara was the only member of the band who didn't sound one hundred percent professional. He knew it, and it bothered him. And Rei had attacked him there.

Yuu re-entered the studio, alone. He stared at the ground, and his voice when he spoke was quiet and husky. "He's serious, guys. He's really quitting." Yuu sighed. "I should have seen it coming. We've argued over every song, every costume… But it won't do any good to think about it. I don't think there's anything we can do. We'll have to cancel Sunday…"

"Can either of you sing while you play?" Seika suggested, uncharacteristically serious. "This is a big event. Urgent Venus is producing it. We were lucky to be invited…"

Yuu shook his head. "It's a good opportunity. But not with substandard vocals, and I didn't write those songs for my own range. Yasu's no better – no offense," he added.

Yasu, who had been quiet since Yuu had come back, looked up and met his band leader's gaze. "Teru can sing." His voice was almost a whisper. "We can use a drum machine for now."

Yuu glanced at Teru. "I've never heard you sing, Teru. Can you hit all the notes?"

Teru nodded.

"Do you know the lyrics?

"Yes."

"Can you scream?"

Teru hesitated, then shook his head. "I can try… but not like Bara could, no."

Yuu picked up his guitar. "It doesn't look like we have much of a choice," he sighed. "We can change the set list, throw in a ballad or two. Let's at least hear what you sound like."

The room was utterly silent. No one played a note; they were all watching as Teru put his drumsticks back in his bag and walked to the microphone. He took it in his hand, testing it's weight – and Yuu launched into the intro of one of La Rose's signature songs. It sounded strange without the drums, but Teru could hear the rhythm in his head as surely as if he had been playing it. He nailed his cue, and the song came to life.

He felt like he was flying, when he sang. It was one of the few things that had always come naturally to him, and to hear his own voice throbbing from the speakers… He knew that he sounded good. This song had been written for Bara's range, much narrower than Teru's own, and the notes came effortlessly. Like a fish in water, except that fish couldn't fly. A flying fish then, soaring over the guitars and bass as the crowd that wasn't there roared its eternal devotion.

The last note seemed to last forever, trembling in the air until Teru was sure that he had held it too long – but it died at the same moment that the guitars did, and the band burst into applause.

For the first time that day, Yuu smiled. "Alright, Teru. After rehearsal, I want you to home and get to work programming that drum machine. On Sunday, you're La Rose Verboten's new singer."

* * *

**Notes:**

Notes on a few words used in this chapter that will be used again:

**uchiage –** A party after the show, usually lasting from 11-ish to 4 or 5 AM. Usually all-you-can-drink, with a little bit of food too. Many bands do uchiages at least for themselves and their staff, sometimes the fans will be invited as well.

**enquete – **French for "inquire" (thanks to Erik for French help!), but in Japanese it means a survey. Most just ask for a person's opinion about the show, messages to the band members, and contact information so the band can send news about upcoming shows, CD releases, etc. They use the French word in Japan and English-speaking fans use it too, so I chose to keep it that way in this story.

About the title of this chapter… I told you all my characters names have meanings? Bara's name means "rose," so… ibara, thorns. Makes sense?

And finally, rating has been changed for language and also for scenes that are forthcoming! See the warning in Chapter 1 if you're confused.


	6. tobasete kureru

**Chapter 6: tobasete kureru let me fly**

"Okay, let's hear from the lead guitar. Whenever you're ready."

Teru heard Yuu strike a chord, then launch into an adlibbed solo behind him, but his attention was not on the sound check. He was finally here, standing at the front of the stage, beneath the lights of Meguro Rock Maykan as the frontman, the singer, the star. And the world looked totally different from here.

It was nothing like it would be during the show, of course. The hall lights were on, and the bassist from Urgent Venus was restringing his instrument in the front row, while a couple of staff girls absentmindedly collated the flyers and enquetes that would be handed out that evening. The balcony, where live house staff and those with guest passes could sit during the show, was empty except for the sound engineer. But even this was a little bit terrifying. Teru had dreamed of this moment for years; now he was here, and it was now, and he couldn't afford to do anything other than shine.

"Okay, thank you. Rhythm guitar, are you ready?"

Yasu began to play the intro to one of their songs, testing a few of his effect pedals in the process. Teru took the microphone into his hand and tried to imagine the song as they would play it tonight. He took a few steps to the right, rested a foot on one of the monitors, leaned over the crowd…. It was awkward. He didn't know how to move onstage. Shaking his head, he returned to center stage and tried to tune out the sound check that was happening around him. He would come out, announce the band, motion to the crowd and then –

"Great. Let's hear the bass, then?"

Seika spoke into his microphone, and his voice – or perhaps his words - startled Teru out of his reverie. "Sorry, we're not quite ready here. Why don't you work on the vocals first?"

"Alright." The voice from the sound booth did not change, but to Teru it seemed to grow suddenly stern and ominous. "The lead singer, then?"

Teru's palms were sweating; he replaced the microphone on its stand and wiped his hands on his jeans. He had seen a hundred singers do this before – it was only the sound check, but he was terrified.

"Ah! Ah, ah!" He half-spoke, half-sang a few notes into the mic, and was almost shocked to hear them echo in the room around him. "Ma, mi, mu, me, mo…."

And it was over. "Sounds great. Thanks. Bassist, are you ready?"

When Seika's sound check had been completed, the band still had fifteen minutes left of their allotted rehearsal time. "Alright, guys," Yuu announced into his own mic, "Let's run the first song from beginning to end. Then if we have time, I want to go through the guitar solo in the third. Teru, take it from the opening MC?"

Teru's hand trembled just a little as he took the microphone from its stand and leaned once more over the imagined audience. "Good evening, Meguro! We're La Rose Verboten!"

Even with no one in the crowd, it felt good. The drum machine kicked in, and the two guitarists stepped to the front of the stage to play the intro. Teru turned his back to the hall – a last-minute bit of choreography, but it made sense. Turn the crowd's attention to Yasu and Yuu, and then…

"Yume no naka de dakishimete!" He belted out the first line of the song, and it sounded okay. Filled with new confidence, he threw himself over his monitor and gestured to the two staff girls as though they were screaming fans. This was it. This was what he had been born to do. The song filled him with a rush of power, and he filled the room with his voice, singing to the empty chairs, to the equipment piled at the back of the hall, up to the balcony…

And before Teru really had a chance to think about it, the song was over, and there was no applause, no cheering crowd. He had given a good performance, but it didn't mean a thing unless he could reprise it that evening.

"All right, that sounds good!" Yuu spoke once more into his microphone, and Teru could barely see the sound engineer nodding his agreement from the shadows. He wondered if he would be able to see the balcony as well when the hall lights went down, and some little nervous part of his heart tightened at the thought. It was enough to know that somehow, somewhere, Rei would be watching. Teru wasn't sure he would be able to sing a note if he could actually see that face, that mask, staring down at him…

"Let's go get some lunch, then!" Yasu turned off his wireless receiver and replaced his guitar in its case. "We've got three hours, and there's a good Chinese place down the street."

Seika shook his head in mock disbelief. "As though three hours were _nearly_ enough, the way you boys abuse your hair and skin… But the food_ is_ good." He grinned.

"That's a good idea." Yuu had finished rearranging his effect pedals in their case and was rifling through a pack of papers that the live house staff had given him regarding the evening's event. "We need to go over our timetable. There are going to be interviews between sets, and we need to come up with a door prize… This is a big event, lots of things to decide. Let's make it a lunch meeting."

Teru could only nod. Although it had felt good to be here, singing, on this stage where Toshi and Ryuichi and Anchang and others had stood before, the sound check had done little to boost his confidence. As soon as the song had ended, the nerves had begun. Rei would be here tonight, for whatever it was worth. And Bara's fans would be here too; Yuu had decided not to contact the fans about the sudden change in line-up, claiming that they came to see the entire band. Teru knew that that wasn't true, however; some of them would definitely walk out when they realized that the object of their adoration wasn't going to show. The fans of the other bands… they were a wild card. There was a very good chance, he considered, that no one would listen to him sing at all.

"Teru, are you coming?" Yasu called to him from the stage door. "The next band does need to use the stage, you know!"

Teru shook his head. He had agreed to sing, had _wanted_ to sing. The others were counting on him, and worrying wouldn't help any of them now. "Sure, I'm coming!" he called back, though he wasn't sure that the childish terror in his stomach had left any room for lunch.

As it turned out, that wasn't much of a problem. Neither Teru nor any of his bandmates had eaten breakfast, and while eating didn't really calm his nerves, it at least gave him something to do instead of worrying about the show. Within fifteen minutes, most of the food was gone, the four of them had signed a copy of their CD single to use as a doorprize, and they had decided that Yuu, as the leader, would be the best candidate to be interviewed after their set.

"Now…" Yuu pulled a notebook out of his bag and flipped to a page filled with illegible handwritten notes. "We need to talk about your MC, Teru. You've got about five minutes total to talk, between the second and third songs, and again between the third and fourth. I definitely want you to announce our next show – July 2nd, at Cyber. And you might want to mention that you're the new vocalist, former drummer… it's Bara singing on the CD, we don't want to confuse any new fans."

Teru nodded. "So, that's the first MC, right?"

"Right. Yasu and I need that time to change guitars, because we'll use half-down tuning for the third song. After that song, we'll change back to our main guitars, and you can use the time to talk about anything you like. Thank Urgent Venus for inviting us to play, tell the audience about our CDs and photo sets for sale, anything you like. Okay?"

"Okay… Sure." Teru hoped that he sounded more confident than he felt. He wasn't good at speaking in front of people, and it actually hadn't really occurred to him that he would have to until this morning. "I'll do my best."

Yuu seemed satisfied with this; he flipped to the next page of his notebook and continued. "All right, last thing on the agenda. Urgent Venus is sponsoring an uchiage, open to anyone who wants to pay for it – that means fans too. Honestly, we've only got 17 ticket reservations and half of those are Bara's fans… but I think at least some of us ought to go. It'll give us a chance to talk to some new people, maybe recruit a few new fans for our next show. I didn't know about it until this morning, so if you've got other plans, that's fine. But I hope I can get at least one of you to come with me?"

Yasu answered immediately. "Sure. Don't want to miss the party, and I'm off tomorrow."

"I wouldn't miss a night out!" declared Seika brightly. "I don't have to be at work until tomorrow night."

Teru lowered his eyes to his lap, and shook his head. "I – I can't go," he stammered. "I'm sorry."

Yuu nodded. "That's fine, maybe next time?"

"Sure. Next time." Teru's throat was suddenly dry; he drained his glass of water in a single gulp. He had promised to meet Rei that night, but it wasn't necessarily something that he wanted his bandmates to know about. "Um… shouldn't we be heading back to the live house? We haven't even started on our hair and makeup…"

"Ahhh… and I suppose it's my job to tease that mess into something resembling a hairstyle?" Seika jested.

Teru grinned in spite of himself. "As always!"

Two hours later, Teru was finally beginning to feel like someone who might possibly belong onstage. He wasn't quite happy with the black roots that were a bit too obvious beneath the avalanche of pink that Seika had molded his hair into, and his new fishnet stockings didn't look quite as nice on his legs as they had in the package, but those were small things, he told himself. Things that the fans weren't likely to notice.

They would, however, notice that he wasn't Bara. And that was likely to be more of a problem.

But the time to worry about that was past; the previous band had vacated the stage, and their singer, a muscular blonde with a definite punk edge to his look, had returned to the stage for his interview. He could hear the singer and the MC talking, but at the moment their words didn't mean anything. Teru could not remember ever having felt this nervous in his life.

He tried to take a deep breath as he ascended the stairs to stage level, but his lungs didn't seem to be working any better than his hands, which trembled as he used them to push a stray bit of hair out of his eyes. _So much for creating a sexy, mysterious image…_

"Thank you!" the host announced, and the singer for the previous band swept back through the curtains and across the stage to the door. "Don't forget, you must_ be here_ to claim a door prize. Now, our next band is appearing for the first time at an Urgent Venus event. Let's give them a warm welcome – La Rose Verboten!"

The curtain opened, and Teru froze. For a spilt second, it seemed as though time had stopped – and then he realized that the rest of the world continued to turn, and that he was supposed to say something. "Umm… good evening, Meguro!" His voice sounded small and weak. "We're… La Rose Verboten!"

A whisper raced through the front row of girls, and Teru could have sworn that he heard Bara's name, but there was no time to think about it. The beat of the drum machine, the pounding heartbeat of the bass, the cries of the guitars swelled from the speakers and swallowed him whole. The song was the world now. It had to be.

Teru took a deep breath. "Yume no naka de dakishimete!" he belted out, wincing a little as his voice went flat on the last note. When Bara had sung this song, the five or six girls who always staked out a place in the front row had screamed and thrust their arms into the air as though to touch him. But when Teru sang it, they stared at him in disbelief, moving their heads slightly to the music so as not to make themselves look silly. They were in the front row, after all. They wouldn't leave in the middle of a song, wouldn't make it look like they had made a mistake.　But it didn't seem as though they would give anyone but Bara a chance, either.

Teru managed to stay on key for the first two verses and a chorus, but that was about all that he had managed to do. Yasu stepped forward to play his solo, and it was with no small amount of relief that Teru escaped momentarily to the back of the stage and took a long drink of water. He didn't want to look at those girls right now, didn't want to see the disinterest on their faces. But he didn't want to look at the balcony either.

He was naked without the shield of the drumset, fully exposed to the crowd and their disappointment. He clutched the microphone as though it were his only lifeline, holding it in front of his face and squinting his eyes a little so that he wouldn't have to see the individual faces of the crowd. He didn't move; he couldn't move. And the song ended to the polite applause that he had heard so often at mediocre concerts.

"Next song…" Teru took a deep breath. He didn't sound very professional, and he knew it. The next song was a darker, almost gothic number… "Next song," he repeated, in a lower, more sinister tone of voice. "Boutoku no Namida!"

He wore what he hoped was a mournful expression on his face; this song was all about doubt, Yuu had told him. The destruction of childhood dreams, the loss of direction that so many of these girls could identify with. Teru tried to make himself identify with it too, and it seemed to be working. One of the girls in the front row received a nasty look from one of her friends for being a little too enthusiastic during the second chorus, and by the end of the number, a couple of girls who had been sitting were standing by their seats and watching with thinly veiled interest.

Teru cleared his throat. It was time to speak. "Hello, Meguro!" There was no response. "I see a few familiar faces, but, um… a lot of you are probably seeing us for the first time tonight. So… let me introduce everyone. On bass, Seika!" This was greeted with polite applause. "On guitar, Yasu!" Again, applause. These girls didn't applaud when they really liked someone – they screamed. "On guitar, our leader, Yuu!" Fortunately, Yuu had a fan or two of his own who managed to break the silence, if only for a moment. "And I… I'm Teru. The lead singer."

A whisper ran through the crowd.

"Um… for some of you, I guess this is a surprise," he continued, though he could have sworn that he had sweated all of the makeup off his face by now. "Our vocalist has, ah… left the band. And I was the drummer… but now, at least, for now, I'm singing. So… let's go to our next song?" He turned around to plead with his bandmates with his eyes. This wasn't going well.

To his great relief, the others nodded their consent, and they launched into the next song. By the time it was over, two of the girls who had stood up during the second number had worked their way to the front, and Teru was fairly sure that he heard one of them whisper "He's cute!" as the last note was dying away.

They could very well have been talking about one of the other members. In fact, Teru told himself, they probably were. But hearing a positive comment from this largely tepid crowd must have given him some sort of courage, because the second MC went much better than the first.

"Thank you, everyone, for coming tonight!" The two newcomers greeted this with a cheer. "If you like what you see, please come see us again – July 2nd at Ikebukuro Cyber. It's a little far from Meguro, but –"

"It's not far!" cried a voice from the back of the crowd.

Teru grinned. "Or for some of you, not so far. Anyway, we'd love to see you there. We have a CD on sale – 1500 yen for three songs, you can buy it outside. And photo sets. Okay, so… we have two songs left. Next, I want to sing a ballad for you… kind of a love song."

Seika began to play the intro, a slow but complicated bass solo. The lights dimmed and faded to blue, and from that moment on, the crowd belonged to Teru. He still clung to the microphone like a life preserver, but maybe it worked with this song, or maybe they had just decided to forgive him his nerves, because the girls in the front row, as well as those standing further back in the hall, began to wave their arms to the music, just as they had for Bara. The song flowed effortlessly from him, as though he had sung it a thousand times before. It was as natural as breathing, and the crowd breathed with him in unison.

By the time the band launched into their last song of the evening, a heavier rock number that they often used to close their sets, there were nearly a dozen girls headbanging wildly at the front of the hall, as though they had been fans their entire lives. Teru allowed his hands to drop a little, allowed his eyes to meet those of the girls in the front row and found that it wasn't bad. They weren't going to tear him apart; they just wanted to live in the music. And right now, Teru _was_ the music. It wasn't bad at all.

He was soaring. It was just like his dream – the crowd was at his feet, and this was something that he had practiced a hundred times before, if only in his mind. This was something that he could do.

The last song ended, and on sheer impulse, Teru pulled the studded leather bracelet from his left wrist and hurled it into the crowd. He saw a hand shoot into the air to catch it, but before he had a chance to see the girl's face, the curtains had closed and Yuu was making his way to the front for his interview.

"Great show, Teru… that was… that was something." The band leader smiled as he pushed the curtain aside and was greeted by something that could be called, by the standards of an event this size anyway, positively thunderous applause.

* * *

Teru made his way up the stairs and to the lobby area in a daze. The show had been both better and worse than he had expected, and the idea of facing the fans… They would either remember the ballad, or they would remember the disastrous MC. It was always one or the other, with girls like this. Still, he had to know.

"Oh, there's the singer!" A voice called from across the tiny room as soon as Teru's pink head was visible at the top of the stairs.

"Shhh, Kana! I'm sure he heard you!" And two voices giggled together.

The two girls who had come up to the front during the third song were standing by La Rose's unmanned goods table, holding copies of the year-old CD single in their hands. "We want to buy your CD," the first girl – Kana – said, "but you don't seem to have any staff!" She pouted, but her eyes were still smiling.

Teru smiled back at her. "I'm sorry, we don't actually have any staff at the moment," he explained. "But I'd be happy to sell you a CD. That's 1500 yen, please."

Kana and her friend, as it turned out, were only the first of many customers that evening. Teru and Yasu at the goods table didn't have a moment's rest, and were relieved only when a staff girl for one of the other bands ducked out to the local convenience store and bought them a couple of beers. They toasted the band over a steadily-dwindling pile of CDs, and in the end, the pile lasted only a little longer than the 350-milliliter cans did.

Even after the CDs were replaced by a handwritten sign reading "Sorry, Sold Out," a few girls stopped by to deliver the enquetes that they had written, and one or two of them even bought photo sets for five hundred yen apiece. Teru was overwhelmed. He didn't really know what to say to these girls; some of them wanted to make small talk, a few of them asked him if he was single… His head was already spinning when the final customer of the evening stopped by.

"Excuse me?"

The girl's voice was soft and feminine and somehow familiar, but Teru was sure that he had never seen her at La Rose's shows before. She was young, probably no older than he was, but looked uncommonly mature in a linen skirt and sweater set in a sea of fishnets and safety pins. Only the black leather bracelet on her wrist, which had until about two hours ago belonged to Teru, marked her as someone who had in fact attended the concert tonight. "Excuse me?" she repeated. "Is it too late to buy a CD?"

Teru smiled apologetically. "I'm sorry. We just sold out."

"Oh…" The girl looked genuinely disappointed. "Well, then… how about photo sets? Do you have any of those left?" She pushed a lock of shoulder-length brown hair behind one ear. It was just a little too light to have been her natural hair color; on the street, Teru wouldn't have looked at her twice. But in here… she didn't look like she belonged here, and yet she also seemed as comfortable as though she went to visual rock shows every night.

He pulled a photo set out of the box and showed it to her. "Five photos for five hundred yen," he explained. "They're a little old, but…"

"Okay." She cut him off. "I'll take three."

Teru found himself smiling at her again. "Actually, we only have the one set. I can give you three, but they'll all be the same photos. But we'll be taking some more as soon as – "

The girl laughed. "Oh, Masato!" she whispered. "Don't you remember me? It's Kiyomi!"

Teru's heart skipped a beat at the sound of his real name. "Wh-who?" He was sure that he had never seen this girl before, but her voice… he had heard it somewhere… maybe…

"Kiyomi, silly! Kiyomi Nakamori? From high school?"

"Ki – Kiyomi?" Teru barely remembered Kiyomi Nakamori from high school, but he was sure that this girl could not have been her. Kiyomi had been chubby, her hair long and greasy, her face hidden by coke-bottle glasses. This girl, on the other hand… this girl was a knockout.

She smiled again and fished a carefully-folded enquete out of her bag. "Yes, I know, I look totally different. But it's me, I swear! We were in the music club at school together, and must have tried a thousand times to get you to come to Z-1 with me, but you refused to go see any indies shows. And now you're playing here… wow. You were really good, um…" She laughed again. "I'm sorry, what's your stage name?"

"Teru," he answered, and smiled at her in return. She had lost a lot of weight, and Tokyo had done wonders for her fashion sense… but it was Kiyomi, all right. She had been on the train to Niigata every weekend to go to that little hole-in-the-wall live house… "Call me Teru."

Kiyomi bowed deeply, as though she had just been introduced to a celebrity. "It's a pleasure to meet you, Teru."

"So, um…" Teru fished for something to talk about. "How long have you been here? In Tokyo, I mean?"

"Only a few months." She reached into her bag again, and pulled out a new-looking Louis Vuitton planner. "Hmm… let's see. Two months and thirteen days, according to this. I finished junior college in Niigata City, and now I'm working for a hotel in Yokohama. It's good money, but I don't have a lot of friends here yet." She looked almost sad for a moment, but then smiled brightly again. "How about you? That hair… wow… I guess you haven't given up and put on a suit yet, then?"

"Uh, no…" Teru ran his fingers through his hair self-consciously. His hair had been long-ish at the end of high school, but the school never would have allowed this color. "Actually…"

"Excuse me!" Their conversation was interrupted by a harried-looking woman in a Rock Maykan staff t-shirt pushing an industrial-sized broom. "We're closing for the evening," she reminded Teru and Kiyomi. "You're welcome to continue your conversation outside."

Kiyomi looked at her watch, and her eyes flew open wide. "Oh, we're going to be late for the uchiage!" she exclaimed. "You're coming, right, Teru?"

_The uchiage… _Teru pulled his phone out of his bag. The lobby was underground; he had no service, so he couldn't tell if Rei had tried to contact him. But he was supposed to be at the apartment in ten minutes… he would never make it at this rate. Shaking his head, he picked up the box of photo sets and turned his back on his high school friend. "I'm sorry, Kiyomi!" he apologized in a rush. "I can't tonight. I have… an important meeting."

"Oh…" Her voice trailed off, disappointed. "Well, then… can I call you? What's your number?"

Teru cursed silently. It wasn't that he didn't want to talk to her – Kiyomi had always been fun to hang out with in high school, she liked a lot of the same music as he did, and now, to top it all off, she had gone and turned into a bombshell. But right now he simply did not have the time.

"Did you write your email address on the enquete?" he asked over his shoulder.

"Yes, but – "

"I'll mail you my contact information then. I'm really sorry, Kiyomi. I'm just – this is really important, right now." He loaded the box into the back of Yuu's van and turned to look her in the eyes. "I'll call you, I promise. Let's catch up on old times."

She nodded, though a bit of the sadness seemed to have crept back into her eyes. "Sure," she sighed. "Let's catch up on old times. I'll see you, then, Masa – Teru!"

Promising himself to send her a mail later, Teru slid her enquete into his bag and pulled out his phone. He cursed under his breath when he saw the time. He didn't know Rei very well – didn't know him at all, really – but he wasn't too eager to find out whether or not his mysterious teacher was a stickler for punctuality. He pulled up the call history and began silently rehearsing excuses and apologies as he turned and made his way up the hill.

* * *

**Notes:**

MC is the talking between songs. I have no idea how to say it in English… I think it was pretty self-explanatory, but in case you were confused, that's what it means.

With regard to the cities that Teru and Kiyomi are talking about… Niigata Prefecture is about a 6 to 8 hour drive northwest of Tokyo. Sanjo is a small city located in the southwest part of the prefecture. Niigata City is the capital, in the northeastern part. Z-1 is a live house near Niigata station, so for Kiyomi to have been going there every weekend, she would have been spending a lot of time and money on the train!

And because I haven't explained it before… 1 yen is more or less equal to 1 cent, just in case you were wondering. It's not exact, and depends on the exchange rate, but if you read 100 yen as 1 dollar, you'll have a vague idea of the amounts of money everyone is talking about. Not that money plays a huge part in this story, but for your reference.


	7. kako no itami

**Adknowledgements**

As always, thanks to all of my readers and reviewers! I'm overwhelmed by the response to this story - small, but enthusiastic! Thanks!

And this chapter owes a special thanks to bee, for encouragement, squees, support, etc. Thanks!

**

* * *

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**Chapter 7: kako no itami - pain of the past -**

To Teru's great relief, Rei did not seem upset at all by the slight change in the evening's plans. "Of course," he had replied, as calmly and patiently as though Teru had made a comment about the weather. "You've had a busy evening, but there are many things that I want to talk to you about. I will be waiting at the apartment. The door is unlocked."

The apartment building was utterly silent, though lights shone in more than a few of the windows. Teru found himself nearly tiptoeing down the corridor, as conscious of the soft fall of his footsteps as he was of the steadily accelerating beat of his heart. He turned the doorknob slowly, hesitantly, trying to remember if it had made any sound. It was hard to believe that, less than a ten-minute walk away, his bandmates were opening the night's first bottle of beer in the noisy fluorescent cheer of some chain izakaya. Rei's apartment was another world, and it was in this world, Teru knew, that the true success of his performance tonight would be measured.

"Hello?" he called softly into the blackness. "I'm sorry I'm late…"

There was no answer, but at the end of the short hallway, the flickering light of Rei's computer screen spilled into the hallway through the half-open door. The other doors were closed; there was nothing in the hall. A strange sense of déjà vu gripped Teru as he kicked off his shoes and stepped up into the apartment proper.

The door to the music room opened without complaint, and this time he closed it behind him without being told. As before, Rei was seated at the computer, his back to the door so that Teru could see nothing except the cascade of royal blue hair that seemed, if anything, brighter than it had been the week before.

"Please, have a seat." The dark figure made a barely perceptible gesture in the direction of the sofa that lined the wall on Teru's left. The papers and CDs that had previously littered it were gone, and Teru was able to sit comfortably, though his nerves prevented him from relaxing completely into the soft and expensive-looking piece of furniture. The coffee table had also been cleared of its previous clutter, and was now occupied by a bottle of cognac, an ice bucket, and a single glass.

"You may pour yourself a drink," Rei continued, though his eyes did not leave the computer screen. From this angle, Teru could see his face in perfect profile, distinguished only by the edges of the mask, shining in the electronic light like some clichéd silver lining.

Teru hesitated. He knew that he could hold his liquor well enough, but that was beer, whiskey, cheap Korean shochu… It would be rude to refuse, he knew, but the contents of this elegant bottle were as foreign and unknown as their owner. "Thank you," he whispered, and poured himself a bit of cognac that would hardly have filled a shot glass were it not for the large amounts of ice that he added to it.

"Very well. Let us talk about your performance, then." Rei lifted a glass from his desk and raised it to his lips without a toast. "Your voice is good, Teru. I have told you that before. The ballad was especially lovely."

Teru wet his own lips with a bit of cognac, and was relieved to find it smooth and far easier to drink than the Black Nikka whiskey he kept at his own apartment. Whether it was the effect of the liquor or of Rei's words of praise, Teru could feel his heartbeat slow almost to its usual rate, and the trembling in his hands began to subside.

"You have promise, Teru," Rei took another sip from his glass. "But it was quite obvious tonight that you had never sung on stage before. The crowd liked your voice, yes… But they also took pity on you."

Teru nodded. He couldn't argue with that.

"You held the microphone in front of your face as though you were terrified. Your MC was stiff and awkward, though the second time was better than the first. You didn't move onstage as much as you should have, and you failed almost entirely to make eye contact with the fans." He listed these things as calmly, as emotionlessly as though they had been hard scientific facts.

"I – I'm sorry." Even as Teru spoke them, the words sounded silly. It had been his first attempt, and while it hadn't been perfect, it had sold CDs, hadn't it? There was no reason to be sorry, and he knew it… but still, in his dreams there had never been anything but praise…

Rei shook his head, and turned away from the computer at last, still holding his drink in his left hand. "Don't be sorry, Teru. Everyone has a first show, and most go much worse than yours did. Tonight is finished. It is the past, and the past – " he took a drink and a deep breath before continuing – "the past is not what matters. We must look ahead, to your next show. Have you practiced the song that I gave you?"

"Yes…" Teru hesitated. "Yes, but I don't know how long it'll be before we can play it. It's a lot harder than any of our current songs…"

"You will play it on the second, at Cyber." Rei's voice was not especially stern, but it left no room for argument. "I have arranged for the recording of your new single, and we need to finish as soon as possible, seeing as you currently have no CD to sell. 'Yami no Hanabira' must be your first priority, do you understand?"

Teru nodded. "Yes, but – "

"Excellent. Then let us begin to work on your staging. Half of your problem, I think, is nerves, and there's no real way to prepare yourself for a crowd. But it helps to think about the song, about what kind of movement you want to incorporate into each section, about what sort of expression you should have on your face." He turned back to the computer and replaced his glass on the desk. "Use the microphone in the corner. It isn't plugged in, but you can practice holding it, decide when you want it on the stand and when you want to carry it with you. Do you remember the song?"

"Yes." Teru was surprised at the confidence in his own voice. "I think so." He stood and placed the microphone in the middle of the room. Even most of the indies stages he had played on were much larger than Rei's little music room, but even so, he could see that this sort of practice might help. Teru wasn't very good at ad-libbing; even as a drummer he had seldom ventured from the piece as written. Mapping out his staging beforehand, even in a room that was entirely unlike any stage he was likely to perform on, would be better than jumping into it blindly as he had tonight.

"Why don't you start with the mic on the stand," Rei suggested, "and take it into your hand during the bridge. Lower the stand a little." Teru fumbled with the stand, and Rei nodded. "That's fine. You don't need the mic so close to your mouth, and your adoring public _does _need to see your face. Let's run the entire song once. Just do whatever feels natural – we can make adjustments the second time around."

Teru was relieved to find that he did, in fact, remember the entire song, and was able to sing it without any major mistakes. It was a lot more difficult than any of La Rose's current songs, however, and more than once he caught himself clutching the microphone as he had on stage that evening, so focused on the notes, the breathing, the dynamics, that he completely forgot to pretend that he was in front of the crowd.

The music stopped, and Rei turned to face Teru once more. "That wasn't bad," he said. "Again, your voice is flawless – or will be, with a bit more practice. Now, when you take the microphone from its stand, try putting the stand behind you, so it doesn't get in your way. Ideally, of course, you would have a roadie to do that, but for now…" He smiled a half-smile beneath the mask.

They ran the first chorus and the bridge a few more times, until Rei was satisfied with both Teru's facial expressions and his handling of the mic. "Now, the third verse, after the key change – " he turned back to the computer and clicked something on the screen. "This is the most dramatic part of the song, and I don't see that in your actions. Look up, imagine yourself looking directly into the spotlight!" Teru did. "Now, hold the mic in your left hand, and raise your right to the heavens. Plead with God, plead with the angels… No, no, stiffen your wrist!" Teru tried, but it looked strange and unnatural. "Palm up, toward the sky!" He tried again. "Okay…" Rei's voice softened. "That's – that's good enough, for now. From the key change, once more."

They ran the song once more, then, from beginning to end, and while Teru wasn't completely comfortable with the staging they had worked out, he thought that he might be able to use at least some of it at the show on the second.

"Thank you… Rei." It was the first time that he had spoken the name aloud, and he blushed a little as he said it. "That was a good idea. Is it… is it something that you do, before a show?"

Rei was silent for a long time, and when he did speak, his voice was steady, but soft and deliberate. "Yes," he replied dully. "It has often helped me, to work out the staging before the show."

_So he is a musician, then…_ But Teru knew that he had asked all of the questions that he would be able to get away with that evening. It wasn't his place to pry, and though he wanted more than anything to ask what band Rei was in, how long he had been in the business, why his name and face weren't all over every live house in the city… he couldn't. Not tonight. Rei had answered the one question, but Teru could sense, somehow, that that one answer had been more than enough, and that to ask any more would be to jeopardize… what? Not a friendship, not even really a working relationship… but a connection, at least. Something that wasn't worth risking.

"T – Teru?" The hesitation in Rei's voice was barely evident, and for a moment Teru wondered if he could have imagined it. "About – about the recording. I need you to talk to the others as soon as possible, set a date. Sometime during the week after your next show would be ideal. You may tell your bandmates that I have taken care of everything – recording, production, packaging – it won't cost them a thing. And… and if you don't mind…" He lowered his eyes just a little, as though at that moment looking at the floor was somehow preferable to facing Teru. "I'd like to offer to mix the recording myself."

Teru blinked, taken aback by both the abrupt change in subject and the unexpectedly generous offer. "So… you're going to pay for La Rose's CD?" he asked, incredulously. "We can't – I mean – why? I'd feel really bad, Rei… I mean, we just can't – can't accept that."

Rei's response was smooth and immediate. "I insist."

"But I barely know you… it wouldn't be right. And besides…" Teru knew that he should not ask the question that had been burning in the back of his mind for the past ten days. But he didn't have much of a choice. The conversation had taken this turn, and the only polite thing to do was to refuse. And the only reason to refuse was…

"It's your song," he urged. "Why don't – why don't_ you_ sing it?"

Rei closed his eyes, and lowered his head, allowing a cloud of blue hair to fall over his face, over his mask, becoming a wall between the two of them. He didn't speak, but Teru did not dare to repeat the question. He had touched upon something that was not meant to be touched upon, and he knew it. Rei had heard him, and it was his prerogative, should he choose not to respond.

"Come here, Teru."

The voice was so soft that Teru could not be sure that he had heard correctly. He took a single hesitant step in Rei's direction, and when that met with no complaint, another. And another. The room was no bigger than Teru's own little hole-in-the-wall apartment, but crossing it seemed to take hours.

Rei looked up and met Teru's eyes once more. The light from the computer screen cast a blueish gleam upon the silver mask, and it seemed to glow like something out of a science-fiction movie. For a long moment, neither man spoke. And then –

"Hold my hand, Teru."

Teru blinked. This was not what he had been expecting. "E – Excuse me?"

"Hold my hand." Rei's expression was utterly serious, and his voice managed to plead and command at once. Shivering a little, despite the warmth of the summer evening, Teru took Rei's extended hand in both of his own. He didn't know that he had ever held a man's hand before. It was entirely different from a woman's: strong and warm, and a little bit rough… but not unpleasantly so.

Rei nodded, though his face remained grim. "I can feel you, Teru."

It seemed a strange thing to say, but Teru simply nodded in return. He was not sure if it was a disappointment or a relief when Rei pulled away first, releasing his grip and returning his hand to his lap.

"Now, Teru…" The strong, beautiful voice fell to a whisper and seemed to catch in Rei's throat. "Hold… hold my other hand."

He raised his left hand to his throat and began painstakingly to pull aside the kimono-style jacket that was the outermost of what seemed to be many layers of black clothing. It was not until that moment that Teru realized that he had never _seen_ Rei's right hand. And in the next instant, most of his questions were answered.

Beneath the jacket, Rei's right arm was held against his chest by some sort of complicated brace, a sling composed of metal and plastic that cradled his elbow and supported his thin, emaciated wrist. His fingers on that hand were pale, thin, and curled inwards a little toward the palm. It did not appear as though he had had the use of that arm for a very long time.

"Please…" Though Rei's face remained frozen in stone, his voice seemed choked with nerves or tears or both. "Please, Teru… hold my hand."

And Teru did. To his surprise, it did not feel cold or dead, but simply lifeless. There was no strength, no answer to his touch. Rei closed his eyes, as though to shut out the world, and when he opened them again they were red, though no tears had fallen. "I felt you…" he whispered. "But now… now there is nothing but pain."

"What – what happened to you?" The question escaped before Teru had had time to consider its appropriateness, but to his relief, Rei seemed to take no offense.

"It was an accident… an old injury."

"And the mask?" Another slip, but perhaps they were past the point where manners ceased to apply.

Rei shook his head. "It isn't important. Teru… listen to me. You have to be my voice, now. This music… it's all that I have left."

"So you gave it to me…" Teru felt sick to his stomach. He remembered waking up one morning, over two years ago now, and turning on the TV only to see that hide, the lead guitarist for X Japan, had hung himself with a towel in his bathroom the previous night. He had felt sick then, as though it had been someone in his family who had died. And he felt sick now; though he knew that Rei had been injured before they had ever met, it was a little like seeing a friend rendered helpless by some silly, stupid accident… Teru clenched his fists in disgust and rage.

"I gave it to you," Rei echoed. "And in exchange… I need you to give your voice to me. Can you do that, Teru? Can you give me your voice?"

Teru licked his lips and nodded. "Okay. Okay… Rei. I'll talk to the others. We'll record your song. I promise."

Rei's smile seemed more than a little forced, but at least it was there. "Thank you, Teru. Thank you. I'll see you…I'll see you in the studio, then."

* * *

**Notes:**

One language thing and one visual kei thing…

Izakaya: think Japanese-style pub. Good food, but alcohol an important part of the menu. One of the best things about Japan. This word will probably pop up again.

hide: The lead guitarist from X Japan, died in 1998 as mentioned in the fic. He didn't capitalize his name, so I didn't. (and it's pronounced hee-day, not Hyde, FYI)

Okay, so, I'm really terrified about posting this chapter… this is really the start of the "good stuff" I guess… so if you have an opinion, let me know it! Thanks as always for reading.


	8. nazo no sakkyokuka

**Chapter 8: nazo no sakkyokuka - the mysterious composer -**

Two hours into the four hours of studio time they had booked, and Teru was already completely exhausted. He fished a cigarette out of his pocket and collapsed into a battered folding chair, grateful to have been given a break from the endless rehashing of Sunday night's lackluster setlist. His bandmates seemed to share Rei's opinion: Teru's voice was fine, but his attitude and staging needed some serious work.

And work they had, mindless of the fact that Teru's back was sore from restocking shelves all day at work, and that he hadn't had a moment of rest since arriving at the studio exactly one minute before rehearsal was scheduled to begin. It hadn't been the best of days, and it hadn't been the best of rehearsals, and no matter how he might try to justify his inability to concentrate, there was really only one explanation: he had not been able to stop thinking about Rei, and about his song, since he had left the apartment on Sunday night.

Teru felt guilty, and the guilt and the fascination were doing an excellent job of preventing him from caring about anything else, though he could not have explained why he felt that way. He did not know what had happened to Rei, but he did know, in theory at least, that it was not his fault, that there was nothing that he, Teru, could do about it. He couldn't change the past. But he was painfully aware that he hadn't yet fulfilled his promise to give the music, at least, a future. He had been trying to work up the courage to broach the issue of the new song, and the possibility of recording it, all evening. But the opportunity had not presented itself, and the rehearsal was already half-over.

He stood up, put out his cigarette in an ashtray that someone had left on top of one of the amps, and cleared his throat. If he didn't mention it now, while the band was taking a break, he might not have another chance.

"Um… Yuu?" The band leader raised an eyebrow in his direction. "Can I – can I talk to you for a second?"

"Sure." Yuu replaced the cap on his bottle of tea and crossed the room to where Teru had been sitting. "What is it?" He lowered his voice conspiratorially.

"It's not a secret or anything," Teru explained to the room. "I mean, I need to talk to all of you. About… about the new song? 'Yami no Hanabira'?"

Yasu nodded. "I've been practicing a little, at home. Think I've got most of the fingering worked out, but it's still tough."

"I'm working on it too," added Seika. "It's getting better."

"I actually haven't had a lot of time." Yuu sounded apologetic. "But I thought we might try to run through it after the break. What do you guys say, shall we give it a try?"

Teru tugged nervously on a loose strand of hair. It didn't sound as though the others had been spending a lot of time on the song… they weren't going to like this suggestion, but it was a suggestion that he had promised to make. He took a deep breath, and continued. "That sounds good. But, actually, I was kind of thinking that maybe we could… um… think about playing it live? At Cyber?"

Yuu seemed to consider this for a moment, but when he spoke it was hesitantly, and with what might have been a laugh in his voice. "What's the rush? I don't mind the idea, if we can get it ready. But it's a lot more difficult than anything else we play… It might be more realistic to aim for the show after that, at the earliest."

Teru nodded, but he couldn't keep his disappointment from showing on his face. "Well, if we can't, we can't, but… my friend? The one who wrote the song?" A look of interest and concern spread across Yuu's face, giving Teru a bit of badly-needed courage. "I, um… I saw him after the show on Sunday, and he – he'd really like us to play it on the 2nd, he said. And… and… well, I guess I have some good news." His bandmates were silent; they were listening, but Teru wasn't sure that they would like what he had to say.

He took a deep breath, and blurted out the news in a rush. "He wants us to record a new single."

Yuu nodded slowly, as though he didn't fully comprehend what Teru had just said. "And… the really good news…" Teru continued, though his nerves were suffering from the silence. "It isn't going to cost us anything. The composer – my friend – wants to mix it himself… and the studio… I don't know. I guess he knows someone…"

Teru was sure, in fact, that Rei would be paying the studio fees out of his own pocket. It was obvious that he had money, and natural that he would want to spend it on his music, even in a somewhat unconventional way. But that was something that Teru wasn't sure he wanted to share… not yet, and maybe not ever. It just hit a little too close to… _to what?_ To whatever it was about Rei that made him feel like Teru's wonderful, terrible, and now tragic personal secret.

"We do need to think about recording again." Yasu's voice tore Teru away from his daydream. "It seems a little soon, but… getting a CD out there with Teru's voice on it, putting out a new song that really shows off his range… it's not a bad idea."

"Not bad, no." Yuu agreed, but shook his head. "It's just too early. We've only played the song together a few times, never on stage, and we don't have a drummer. Do you think you can play the drums on the recording, Teru?"

Teru felt his face grow hot. He had glanced 'Yami no Hanabira''s drumline, but a glance had been enough to tell him that it was completely beyond his own ability as a drummer. He would be hard-pressed even to program it into a synthesizer, and he knew that Yuu – and Rei, for that matter – would probably insist on live drums for the recording.

"I think it's a good opportunity." Seika, who had been silent for the most part since the conversation began, put out his own cigarette and reached into his bag, eventually retrieving his copy of the sheet music. "I have a friend, who works at the club. He's a drummer. In a punk band, wouldn't touch our terrible girly makeup with a ten-foot pole… But I think he'll play on the recording, if I asked him. He owes me one!" Seika winked. "And he could definitely handle this."

"Okay." There was still a note of doubt in Yuu's voice, but his expression was a determined one as he picked up his guitar and began to double-check his tuning. "It's something to think about, at least. Let's try it." And he struck the first chord.

All in all, it didn't go too badly. Yuu and Yasu both stumbled once or twice during the complicated twin guitar solo, and though no one else had noticed, Seika swore that his timing had been off during the final verse. As for Teru, it was as though the song had been written for him. The highest parts were a bit of a reach, but they were a reach that somehow liberated, even as they challenged him. The second time went a bit better than the first, and by the third time, spirits in the studio were running high.

"All right." Yuu smiled at the band as he tossed his guitar pick back into its case. "I'm impressed. Seika, can you talk to your friend tonight?" The bassist nodded. "And Teru… let your mystery composer know that we'll meet with him, at least. Talk about recording his song. Did he give you any idea of a timeframe?"

Teru smiled back hesitantly. "The week after the show, he said, if we can do it."

"That's soon… any idea what day he was thinking of?"

"Um… any time's okay, as far as I know. He – my friend, I mean… he's, um, self-employed…" Teru found himself wondering for the first time what Rei _did_ do for a living. Did he work for Rock Maykan, somehow? Disability benefits couldn't possibly have paid for that apartment, and all of the audio equipment…

"Okay, so when are we all free?" asked Yasu. "I'm off on Tuesdays and Sundays, but I can always swap a shift with someone else if I need to."

"Any afternoon is fine with me," Seika added. "The club doesn't open until 7."

Yuu nodded and pulled his own battered planner from the outside pocket of his guitar case. "Tuesday isn't bad for me, either. Teru?"

"I'm sure I can get the day off if I ask," he replied, grateful that his manager wasn't too strict about taking time off. "Tuesday… the fourth, right? I'll call my friend tonight and let him know. Thanks, guys."

"Well I, for one, can't wait to meet this mysterious composer!" Seika commented off-hand as he unplugged his bass and replaced it in its padded case. "He sounds… oh, I don't know… sexy!"

Teru blushed. Though he knew that Seika was joking, the comment made him wonder – what _would_ his bandmates think of Rei?

"Well," Yuu sighed. "I don't know that I like the idea of collaborating with someone I've never even met, sexy or not… But let your friend know that we'll meet with him. See what he has to say."

That was really the best that Teru could hope for, especially from Yuu. "Okay, I will," he promised. "I'll call him when I get home."

Only Yasu was silent, though he walked with Teru as far as the train station. Teru could not remember the last time he had spent five minutes with his best friend in total silence, and he found it more than a little unnerving. Yasu had seemed enthusiastic enough about the concept of recording, but as soon as the others had gone their separate ways, a look of concern had crept over his usually smiling face and stubbornly refused to go away.

They may not have spoken at all, in fact, were it not for the small, folded piece of paper. As Teru pulled out his wallet to buy a ticket, it fluttered from his bag, unnoticed, to rest against the toe of one of Yasu's boots.

"Teru?"

He paused, his finger poised above the automatic ticket machine. "What?"

"You dropped this." Yasu returned the piece of paper and met Teru's eyes for an instant before both men looked away.

"Ah… thanks." Teru pressed the appropriate button and retrieved his ticket and his change. "Um… Yasu?"

"Yes?"

"What's wrong?"

Yasu shook his head. "It's nothing… not really. I'm just worried about you."

"Worried?" Teru raised an eyebrow.

"It's not like you to miss an uchiage!" The words came out in a burst of forced lightheartedness. "And this mysterious 'friend'… the composer… who none of us has ever met? It's just… strange. That's all. And I guess I was wondering…"

"Yes?"

"Is he, by any chance… a she?"

Teru blinked. The question had come from nowhere. "N – No… Why?" he stammered in reply.

Yasu shook his head, and his smile widened a little. "No reason. I just thought that might explain the secrecy!" He laughed again, and this time the laugh seemed to be genuine. "Nevermind. I guess I'll find out everything soon enough. Is he coming to Cyber?"

"Um… maybe?" Teru hadn't though to ask. "I don't know."

"Okay." His friend seemed to have relaxed considerably. "I guess… I'll see you on Sunday, then?"

"Sure. See you on Sunday." Teru headed to the right-hand platform, bound for Tokyo, as Yasu headed to the left, for the train for Mitaka and Tachikawa. It was almost a relief to be left alone.

He reached into his bag for his phone, but the first thing he found was a loose piece of paper, folded in fourths – the paper that he had dropped on the floor a few minutes earlier. _And what was that all about?_ Teru wasn't exactly in the habit of carrying random bits of loose paper around in his bag. Had Yuu given him a rehearsal schedule or something that afternoon? He couldn't remember.

He pulled the paper out and unfolded it. "Shit…"

How could he have forgotten? It had been three days ago, now, that he had run into Kiyomi Nakamori from high school in the lobby of Meguro Rock Maykan. Three days since she had written the enquete that he now held in his hand. Three days, Teru realized, since he had promised to call her, shoved her contact information into his bag, and promptly forgotten that he had it.

"Shit!" he repeated, and the old woman standing beside him on the platform gave him a dirty look, though Teru couldn't be quite sure that it was in response to his language, and not to his hair, his clothes, and his very existence.

He opened the mail program on his phone and typed in the address that Kiyomi had given him, a little disappointed to see that it was a free webmail address, and not a cell phone. But then again, he wasn't really in any position to be expecting a fast reply, was he?

"Hi, Kiyomi!" he wrote. "Sorry for the late reply. Thanks for coming to the show the other night. What band were you there to see, by the way? Anyway, I'm glad that you saw us, too. And thanks for writing the enquete, I'm glad you enjoyed the show. I guess you know this already, but our next show is at Cyber on the second. It would be great if you could come. As far as seeing you outside of the live house, it'll probably have to be after the second. I don't know when you're off, but I don't really have any time until then. Let's meet sometime in July, if you have the time?"

Teru re-read the mail and, satisfied that he hadn't made any terribly distracting typos, added his phone number and email address to the end of the message and sent it.

_One down, one to go…_

Rei's message was at once easier and more difficult to write than Kiyomi's had been. He knew what he wanted to say to Rei, and it was always easier to write email when there was an actual purpose behind it.

"I just finished rehearsal, and I was able to talk to the others about the idea of recording. They're interested. How does Tuesday the fourth sound for you?"

But then again, with Kiyomi he was at least sure of where he stood. In high school she had been his classmate, his equal. Though he was perhaps nominally her superior in a live house setting, and she was undeniably ahead of him in terms of both education and salary, he knew that she wouldn't consider it rude if he took a friendly tone with her. With Rei, on the other hand… was he a teacher? A senior in the music business? A friend?

"The others are really looking forward to meeting you," he added, hoping that it didn't sound too forward. "Do you think you'll be able to come to Cyber on the second? Of course, we'd give you a guest pass. Thanks again for all of your help. – Teru."

The train came, and Teru found himself squashed into a corner right next to the woman who had given him a dirty look on the platform. He closed his eyes and tried to ignore her, but before the train had a chance make its second stop, his phone began to vibrate in his pocket. The old woman glared at him again, but this time he decided that he could ignore her with his eyes open.

The message was from Rei. "The fourth will be fine. Thank you for arranging this. I am planning to come to the studio, but I won't be able to make it to Cyber on the second. Do you have time to come over again before then?"

_I won't be able to make it to Cyber_…

Teru was surprised and ashamed to realize how very disappointed he was.

**

* * *

**

**Notes:**

As always, thanks to my readers, reviewers, fellow denizens of PPN, and anyone else who has been so sweet and encouraging in the writing of this story! I love you guys!

I don't know that there's anything specifically to explain in this chapter! As always, let me know if anything is especially difficult to understand.

EDIT: Just realised that I made a stupid mistake and re-uploaded this chapter. The content is the same, but I realised that the first Tuesday in July, 2000 was the fourth, not the fifth. Computer calendars can be turned back for a reason! Sorry for the slip-up.


	9. ohisashiburi

**Adknowledgements:** This chapter owes a huge debt to two RL friends who helped answer my questions about recording studios! As always, thanks to everyone who has been reading and reviewing. It really means a lot to me that you are enjoying this unconventional story, thanks!

**Chapter 9: ohisashiburi - it's been a long time - **

As it turned out, neither Rei nor Kiyomi was able to come to the show on the second. Over thirty others, however, ended up making their ticket reservations through La Rose Verboten, and with the money from the ticket sales, the band members were able to pay for their drinks that night as they read their way through a plie of largely positive enquetes.

The new song had gone over well, and those who had seen La Rose in Meguro two weeks before had noticed a positive change in Teru's stage presence. The lack of CDs for sale had been a disappointment, but when Teru had mentioned that recording for a new single would begin that week, an encouraging cheer had swept through the crowd. By the end of the evening, the photo sets were nearly gone, and the enquete box was overflowing onto the conspicuously empty goods table. By anyone's definition, the show had been a success.

There was talk of the new costumes, of the next show, of the fan letters that Yuu and Teru had received. But after the enquetes had been read, and two or three rounds of beer gone dry, the conversation was dominated by talk of Tuesday's recording session, of the new CD… and of its composer. Teru was partially relieved; even Yuu seemed a bit more enthusiastic about working with Rei after the warm reception that his song had been given. But the little gnawing doubt that had taken up residence in his stomach was also feeding on the enthusiasm of the others. He was fairly sure that, whatever they were expecting of their new collaborator, Rei wasn't going to fit the bill.

Work on Monday seemed as though it would never end, and though Teru was exhausted, he managed to sleep only for about four hours, and that in intermittent bursts of incomprehensible dreams. At five o'clock, he finally gave up and retreated to the shower. If his nerves refused to let him use this time to relax, at least he could use it to dye his hair.

By noon, when he left for the studio, Teru's hair was closer to fuchsia than to the baby pink that it had been the night before, and his black roots were as gone as his unprofessional hands and a hundred-yen-store mirror were going to get them. He'd shaved every inch of his body that could possibly be visible, plucked his eyebrows, and put on a bit of eyeliner. It was silly, he knew, but it had killed some time and left him feeling a little more confident. His own face, his own body, his own voice – Teru didn't have to worry about those. But he was more than a little anxious about seeing Rei.

The studio was in Ginza, on the other side of the city. It wasn't an area that Teru knew well – there wasn't a lot there, as far as he knew, besides office buildings and upscale department stores. Fortunately, the map that Rei had given him was easy enough to understand, and he managed to arrive at the studio fifteen minutes before their scheduled appointment.

Teru had only been inside two or three recording studios in his life, and only one in Tokyo, but that experience was enough to tell him that this place had not come cheaply. The door opened into a lobby area that could have belonged to one of the upscale doctor's offices that most people only ever saw on TV. The walls were stark white, lined with black leather chairs that looked a bit like futuristic torture devices, but were comfortable enough once Teru actually sat down. The only light in the room seemed to emanate from the walls themselves, but it was enough to make the lobby seem blindingly bright, even in contrast to the early July afternoon that he had just left behind.

"Good afternoon, sir." A smiling receptionist in a uniform as jet-black as the chair in which Teru was sitting appeared behind a solid white block of a desk and bowed to him. "You are with…" she glanced down at something on the desk. "La Rose Verboten, is that correct?"

"Y – Yes, that's right. Is anyone else here?"

The woman smiled sweetly at him. "Not yet. You're still a bit early. Please feel free to relax here, and someone will call you when the studio is ready." She bowed again and disappeared into the next room, leaving Teru alone.

It was less than a minute before the door opened, and Teru's heart froze at the sound. He was on his feet, Rei's name halfway to his lips – when he realized that the newcomer wasn't Rei at all. "Oh, Yuu!" he gasped. "You – you startled me."

Yuu gave him a strange look, but it soon gave way to a look of awe as he took in the modern luxury of the lobby with every bit of Teru's fascination, augmented by a few more years' experience in studios of the other variety. "Wow..." he whispered, as though afraid to break the perfect white silence. "This is… This is something."

"I wasn't expecting anything like this, either," Teru agreed, trying to smile as his fingers insisted on wringing themselves fitfully together. "It's really nice."

Yuu shook his head in disbelief. "We're never going to be able to repay your friend for this. Is he here, by the way? I've got a few things I want to talk about before we start."

"I - I don't think so." Teru pulled out his phone to see if Rei had tried to call him, but it appeared as though he didn't get service inside the studio. "I haven't heard from him, but the receptionist said that I was the first one here."

"And we thought we were going to be early!" Seika and another man, whom Teru assumed to be his drummer friend, burst into the middle of the conversation. "Tetsuya, this is Teru, our singer, and Yuu, our leader and lead guitarist. Teru and Yuu, this is Tetsuya, as fabulous on the drums as he is in bed!"

Tetsuya was not at all what Teru had been expecting. Seika had never said so much, but it was generally assumed that the club at which he worked catered to patrons of a similar sexual persuasion. And Tetsuya... well, he didn't seem _gay_, if that meant anything at all. He was tall and muscular, and while his hair was blonde and on the long side, it was definitely a more masculine cut that Seika's or even Teru's own. When he spoke, his voice was deep and a little husky, and Teru could not have imagined him wearing anything more feminine than the torn black jeans and T-shirt that he had on.

"It's a great song," he commented by way of greeting. "I'm looking forward to working with you."

Yasu was the last to arrive, running through the door just as recording was scheduled to begin and apologizing for being late. "Went out… the wrong exit…" he panted, half in jest. Teru could tell that he wasn't as tired as he let on. "Stupid... subway..."

Yuu glanced impatiently at the wall clock. "Well, we're all here." He looked pointedly at Teru. "Do you think you should call your friend, or something? Is he usually late?"

Teru shrugged. He had no idea whether or not Rei was inclined to be punctual, seeing as he had never met the man outside of his own apartment before. But somehow he didn't think that explaining that fact would do a lot to raise his bandmates' opinion of the situation. "Let's give him a few more minutes?" he suggested. "We can tune and warm up without him, at least."

The others consented, though Teru was beginning to share some of their obvious doubt. Was it possible that Rei wouldn't show? But he had promised quite clearly to come to the studio – not to Cyber, but to the studio. And despite his vague answers to questions that he didn't necessarily like, Teru couldn't believe that Rei would blatantly tell a lie. _Maybe he wanted to be the last one here? Maybe he was hoping that if he came in late, sat in the mixing booth... that maybe no one would notice..._

"Mr. Tashiro. It's been a long time."

Teru had been glancing over the sheet music, but at the sound of the voice, his hands stopped cold. It was Rei. He was here. Teru wasn't sure if he had really believed, until this moment, that he would come.

"Mr... ahhh, Rei. It's – it's a pleasure. Really. A pleasure." The other voice, which must have belonged to Mr. Tashiro, was less confident. It sounded to Teru as though he had been caught off-guard, or shocked.

_It's been a long time..._

"Ah, er… how are you? How have you been? I heard... I mean..."

"I have been well, thank you," Rei's voice was as composed as ever. "I am sorry to be late. I had a bit of difficulty in getting here, but I assure you that everything will go smoothly from here on. Shall we?"

Teru did not hear Tashiro's response, but when he looked up from the music, Rei was there. He stood in the doorway of the studio, tall and silent, his brilliant blue hair spilling carefully across his face and nearly succeeding in hiding his mask, while leaving the left side of his face largely exposed. He was dressed, as always, entirely in black, layers of skirts and wide, flowing sleeves that left him looking less like a musician than like a gothic queen in mourning. His eyes met Teru's, and what passed between them left Teru feeling uncomfortable, exposed, as though he had not only forgotten to dye his hair, but also to dress himself before leaving the house that morning.

Rei surveyed the room, taking in the equipment, the instruments, the musicians. It may have been Yuu's band, and it may have been Mr. Tashiro's studio, but for now, at least, this moment, this day, this song – they were Rei's kingdom.

"It is a pleasure." He inclined his head and bowed, ever so slightly, the image of grace and perfection. And then he stepped into the room, and the image was shattered.

If his bearing had been that of a queen, it now resembled nothing so much as that of an old man. His steps were awkward and uneven, and taken at half the pace of those of Mr. Tashiro, who shuffled into the room behind him and bowed fitfully to the band. His right arm was concealed within the folds of his robes, and his left, aided by a cane that Teru had until then failed entirely to notice, seemed to be bearing somewhere close to half of his weight. Rei did not speak; he seemed entirely focused on the simple task of walking.

And yet, his elegance remained. His manner, his attitude, his _aura_ refused assistance, and the look that he gave the room, when he had finally lowered himself painstakingly into a chair behind the mixing board, dared the band to make any comment at all on his appearance. No one but Teru, who had seen the man in the comfort of his own home, could possibly have recognized the nervous twitch at the visible corner of his mouth, or the look of utter terror in his eyes.

"Well, then." His voice was quiet, but firm. "Shall we begin?"

To Teru's relief, none of his bandmates were anything but polite; in fact, they spoke very little as they ran through the song together a few times, stopping to take Rei's advice with murmured consent and quiet nods. It was obvious that he unnerved them a little. It was also obvious that his music, and his musical knowledge, had earned their respect.

By the time the band had finished their third rendition of the song, the atmosphere in the room could almost have been considered relaxed. Seika hadn't lied about Tetsuya – he was an excellent drummer, and accepted both Rei's and Yuu's suggestions with a smile and an open mind. The others had obviously been practicing, and Teru, at least, felt as though he could have performed "Yami no Hanabira" in his sleep.

Rei, obviously, did not disagree. "That was fine," he announced, when the final note of the third attempt had died away. "We will begin with the drums. Guitars, bass, you may do as you like for the time being. Teru?"

Teru jumped. "Y – Yes?"

"We will record the vocals last, after the other parts have been completed. Until then... would you like to learn a bit about the art of sound engineering?" Rei indicated the complicated-looking series of mixing boards and recording devices before him. "I would like to teach you. If, that is, you do not have other plans?" He raised his visible eyebrow expectantly.

Teru glanced at Yuu, but the band leader only shrugged. "Go ahead, if you want to. I think I'm going to stay and watch, too."

"Okay. I guess... yes. I would like to. Thank you." He nodded in Rei's direction, though his heartbeat had accelerated again.

The sound booth was raised a bit above the floor of the studio, so that Teru had to step up twice in order to reach it. It was a little strange, looking down on his bandmates, though the total difference in height could not have been more than thirty or forty centimeters. Stranger still was the idea of sitting there, in front of a panel of instruments that meant next to nothing to him, and next to Rei... Tashiro, the studio's engineer, was seated against the far wall on Rei's left, which put Teru next to the door, on his right.

From this angle, he could see almost nothing of Rei's face; it was covered by the mask, and beyond that, by a curtain of blue hair that, at this distance, appeared almost certainly to be a wig. It was too bright, too perfect to have been natural. No hair could possibly have been dyed that color without at least a few split and broken ends, but Rei's was absolutely flawless, and as brilliantly blue as it had been the first time that Teru had laid eyes on it. He found himself staring – at the wig, at the mask, at the cane which now lay propped against the mixing board, at once the most innocent and the most sinister thing in the world...

_What happened to you, Rei?_

He forced his eyes away, painfully aware that he was blushing again.

The recording session began in earnest then. Tetsuya was a brilliant drummer; from the first take, Yuu was grinning from ear to ear and Teru was struggling not to let his jaw drop in disbelief. Rei, however, was not so easily pleased. "That was nearly perfect," he said, though his tone of voice was as flat and emotionless as it had been all day. "Let's try it once more."

Yuu looked for a moment as though he might object. During the recording for the previous single, Teru recalled, they had barely been able to afford the studio fees as it was, and one perfect take had had to be enough. But, as Rei explained to Teru in hushed, almost secretive tones: "It sounded perfect, yes. But that doesn't mean that he can't do better."

Despite the fact that Teru had been invited to sit with Rei in the sound booth, he discovered very quickly that there wasn't actually a lot for him to do there. Once or twice he was asked to push a button or adjust a level, but it wasn't anything especially difficult or challenging, and by the time the drums and bass had been recorded to Rei's satisfaction, it was all that he could do to refrain from yawning.

"That was excellent. Thank you." Rei dismissed Seika with a slight inclination of the head that could have been either a slow nod or a half-hearted bow, and then turned his attention to the other members, who had seated themselves against the far wall of the studio to watch. "You may take a fifteen-minute break, if you would like. Teru?"

"Y – Yes?" Teru jumped; his mind had been wandering.

"You may take fifteen minutes, as well. Mr. Tashiro?"

"Hm?"

"A glass of water, if you please." Rei looked pointedly at the clock on the wall of the studio. "Fourteen minutes, now. I want the two guitarists – and Teru – back here at four-fifteen. Thank you!"

Teru stood up and stretched; simply sitting for three hours had worn him out, and it was beginning to appear as though he would have to sit for three more before he was able to record his own part. He grabbed his phone, lighter, and a pack of cigarettes out of his bag and shoved them into a pocket. The studio was nice enough, but it was beginning to feel a little claustrophobic, and at the moment, he would rather hear what his bandmates had to say about Rei than to deal with what Rei had to say about the band.

"So..." Yuu shook a cigarette out of his own box and lit it, inhaling once before continuing. "What's with the mask?"

Teru nearly dropped his own lighter in his shock. He had not expected the questions to begin so soon. _But then again_, he told himself with a grim smile, _they do only have fourteen more minutes._ He shook his head, and hoped that his lie was convincing. "I don't know, honestly. I've never asked." The first part wasn't really a lie, anyway, was it? He didn't know, not for sure. And suspicions weren't quite the same as knowledge.

"Is he in a band?" Yasu furrowed his brow. "I'm sure I've never seen him before... but he knows what he's doing, doesn't he?"

Seika only laughed. "If he wants to be mysterious, let him. I'll never get this cheapskate to give me that many takes!" He shot a look of mock disgust in Yuu's direction. "Seriously, though… I don't care. Am I curious? Sure. But I learned a long time ago that what other people do – and wear – is none of my damn business." He shrugged and took a long drag on his cigarette. "Besides, it's kind of hot."

Yasu rolled his eyes. "So, where did you meet him, Teru?"

To Teru's relief, his phone rang then, sparing him from having to answer the question. "Hello?"

"Teru?" It was a woman's voice.

"Kiyomi?"

"Oh, you did recognize my voice!" She laughed, and even over the static-y connection, it was like the tinkling of windchimes in the middle of the summer afternoon. "How are you?"

"I'm… I'm okay. Actually, we're recording today... I told you that, didn't I?" This conversation was doing nothing to divert the attention of the others, and Teru felt his face grow red for what must have been the hundredth time that day.

Kiyomi laughed again. "Of course you did. I'm just calling to wish you luck... and maybe to see if you were free this weekend?"

Well, she was certainly bold, he would give her that... "This weekend?" Teru flinched as his bandmates' eyes widened in nearly perfect unison.

"Is it a girl?" mouthed Yasu silently. Teru chose to pretend that he could not read lips.

"I'm off all day Saturday?" she suggested. "Look, I know you're busy... we can decide the details later, but tell me you'll have dinner with me Saturday night?"

"Saturday night…" Teru repeated. He had to work, but it was only the morning shift. There would be plenty of time to go home and change…

"Okay." Though he knew that she couldn't see him, he couldn't help but smile. It had been ages since he'd been on a date, and he didn't think that he had ever been asked by a girl before. "Look, Kiyomi, I have to go... but I'll send you a mail, okay?"

"Alright!" she answered brightly. "See you on Saturday, then!"

"Yeah, see you on Saturday!"

As soon as he hung up the phone, Yasu began to assault him with questions again, though the issue of Rei and the mask seemed to have been mercifully forgotten. "Who is she? Where did you meet? Is she cute?"

Teru laughed, holding up his hands as though surrendering to an enemy. "One at a time!" he protested. "Do you remember Kiyomi from high school? Kiyomi Nakamori? She was in our year, but a different class... short, quiet... really into indies rock?"

Yasu raised an eyebrow. "You're going out with Kiyomi? I didn't even know she was in Tokyo."

"Neither did I. I ran into her at the show the other day, and – "

"Excuse me?" Teru whirled around to find Mr. Tashiro standing in the doorway behind him. "Mr... erm, Mr. Rei, would like to see the guitarists as soon as you're finished here."

"Okay." Yuu pulled a portable ashtray from his pocket and began to pass it around. "I think we're finished now, sir. We'll be right in."

Teru returned to the sound booth, though Rei had become even quieter than before. He gave Teru only the simplest of tasks to do, and explained nothing at all; it seemed, in fact, as though he had nearly forgotten that Teru was there. By the time they began laying down the vocal tracks, he had begun to wonder if he had somehow managed to offend his mentor... but then again, it was just as likely that all of them were simply very tired.

"Teru, are you ready?"

Teru adjusted the heavy studio headphones over his ears and pulled the microphone a little closer to his face, looking up to the sound booth the entire time, seeking confirmation that what he was doing was okay. "Yes... I think I'm ready."

Rei nodded. "Then you are. Shall we?" And without waiting for a response, he cued the recorded accompaniment, and music flooded into Teru's ears.

When he had sung the song at Cyber on Sunday night, he had tried to think of losses in his own life, tragedies that had to be overcome, as the lyrics suggested. He had thought of his mother, who had refused to speak to him from the moment he announced that he was moving to Tokyo to be a rock star. He had thought of the death of his grandfather, a bitter old World War II veteran who hadn't had enough good sense left to shut up about his outdated right-wing political views. He thought of the breakup of his first band, and that one had almost worked. But tonight, he thought about Rei.

"hanabira no hahen,

suna no you ni, kaze ni..."

_Broken pieces of petals, like sand, in the wind..._

What had Rei's life been like… before? He had been a musician - that much was obvious. Had he played at Rock Maykan? At Cyber? At Area? Had he recorded a single, just like this? Had he gotten along with his bandmates? With his fans? Had he had a girlfriend, maybe? Or a boyfriend? Teru imagined all of those things, and when he looked up at that beautiful, terrible mask, he saw them all breaking apart.

His voice trembled a little on the final note, and he grimaced. Perhaps the half-fabricated tragedy had worked too well. "I'm sorry about that last part," he apologized as soon as the song was over, grateful that his speaking voice, at least, was steady and calm.

"No..." Rei shook his head. "Don't be sorry. It was beautiful, Teru. I do believe that you've finally learned to sing with a bit of emotion."

It was a compliment, but it still stung. _I sang it for you, dammit!_ Teru wanted to shout... but he couldn't. He had used Rei to fabricate emotions, that was all. Empathy. Not even empathy for the man, he told himself firmly. Empathy for the lyrics. The lyrics... He took a deep breath. He could do it again.

But each time they recorded, it seemed, the song grew less and less emotional. The sympathy, the compassion, the _pity_ he had felt would not return, and in the end he found himself thinking again of the night that his first band had broken up, and the silly, childish tears that he had tried so hard not to shed.

"Fine. Enough." Rei raised his hand as though to warn a misbehaving child. "We are obviously done here. The first take will be fine."

Teru nodded, and began to collect his things in silence. Something had happened between them, though he had no idea what. Rei was not happy. Teru was sure that his inability to repeat his initial performance had had something to do with it... but he _had _done one good take, after all, and when it came down to it, one was all they really needed. No... that was a part of it, but it wasn't all.

"Nice job, Teru." Yuu smiled wearily. "What do you say we go have a beer, celebrate?"

"Sure!" Teru forced a smile onto his face. "That'd be great. I think we earned it!"

"How about your friend?" asked Seika. "Rei, was it? Would you... would you like to come along?"

Rei raised an eyebrow in surprise, but his response was as fluid as though it had been carefully rehearsed. "Thank you for... your kind offer. But I am afraid I have other business to attend to tonight. Teru? May I have a word with you alone, before you go?"

It wasn't as if he had much of a choice. "It's okay. Go on ahead, guys!" His voice sounded falsely bright to his own ears. "I'll catch up to you outside."

And the two of them were alone.

"Two things," Rei began. "First, thank you for not mentioning… the things that I told you the other night. It would be better if you continue to avoid mentioning them. Is that clear?"

"Yes... Yes, sir."

"And, regarding your relationship with Ms. Kiyomi Nakamori." Rei frowned. "Perhaps things have changed, over the past few years, but the last time I was in a band, there were two types of musicians. There were those who were in it for the music, and there were those who were in it for the girls. Which are you, Teru?" He raised his hand again, sharply. "Don't answer that. Just think about it. If you want to succeed in this business, I advise you, _quite strongly_, against fraternizing with the fans."

Teru nodded, though he could not bring himself to look Rei in the eyes. "I understand. Thank you. Is that all?"

Rei's voice was soft, but firm. "Yes. Now go. I have work to do."

* * *

**Notes:**

As always, Rei's lyrics are written and translated by yours truly.

No real new words in this chapter, so there's nothing much to introduce in the way of vocabulary.

As always, I am very interested to know what you think... good or bad, long or short, review or private communication... I appreciate any and all opinions, so if you have one, please let me know! Thanks as always for reading.


	10. hitori

**Chapter 10: hitori - alone -**

The world was red, and pain. The beating of the drums sent a steady pulse of agony down his spine, and the strobe lights burned a tracery of crimson lightning on the backs of his eyes. He should not have come here, but he could think of nowhere else to go.

He had seen this band a thousand times before, under this guise or under another, the same rehashing of hackneyed riffs and off-key screaming. It was not enough to take him away from this place, not enough to erase the walls, the solitude… the pain. He raised his hand, ran a finger along the edge of the mask, the dividing line that separated beauty and monstrosity, the border between reality and dream. The music was not enough to erase _this_…. Not that anything could be, tonight.

The pain would never end; he knew that. He had been told as much by every doctor, every so-called specialist and therapist and holistic healer in the city. But it came and went in waves: some days were almost bearable, and others….

A storm was coming. He could feel it in every bone that had been cracked and broken and shattered to pieces, could feel it pounding through his veins and down the ripped and twisted pathways of his nerves. A storm was coming. Or perhaps it was only the storm that continued to rage in his heart.

The boy was gone.

Tonight, he belonged to _her_. And that injury was greater than all of the others put together.

It had been naïve of him to expect anything else, of course. The girl was young, beautiful, whole. She was perfect - and he hated her for it.

And he hated himself for that.

The girl was not a fan. He had heard them talking in the lobby that evening, had heard the surprise and mutual recognition in their voices. She was not a fan, and yet he had attacked her as such.

_I attacked her because I hate her. And I hate her… I hate her…_

_I hate her because I love him._

The pain doubled and tripled as the tortured wail of an inept guitar solo stabbed him in the heart.

_I love him… I love him…_

He closed his eyes against the pain, and a shudder shook his body. His tears had run dry years ago, but the pain would never leave him.

_Oh, God… Oh, Saki…_

The world was darkness, and pain.

_Saki… forgive me._

* * *

**Notes:**

I know, it took a long time to get this up, and it's so short. I'm sorry! Nothing really to explain here… well, there might be a few questions, but nothing I can answer right now, so… please wait for the next chapter! Hopefully coming soon!


	11. kindan no honoo

**Chapter 11: kindan no honoo - forbidden fire -**

The sidewalk in front of Alta was definitely not the place to be on a Saturday night. The department store, which catered primarily to teenage girls, was located across the street from Shinjuku Station's busy east exit and marked by an enormous television screen that was currently assaulting pedestrians with a hundred long-lashed reasons to buy Kanebo cosmetics. It was one of the easiest meeting places in the city, recognizable even to someone like Kiyomi who had been here for a matter of months. This was exactly the reason why Teru usually avoided it like the plague.

He had arrived nearly ten minutes early, staked out a spot a few meters away from the seasonal outdoor displays, and had been scanning the crowds for Kiyomi ever since. Shinjuku on a Saturday night was a sea of trendy haircuts and brand-name clothing, flawless makeup and designer jewelry – but a man with pink hair still got the occasional stare, both admiring and otherwise. It would be easier just to relax, and let Kiyomi find him.

Teru took a deep breath. He wanted a cigarette more than anything, but Kiyomi wasn't a smoker, as far as he knew, and he had just eaten half a pack of breath mints. It would have to wait. He shifted uncomfortably, wishing that he hadn't worn this particular pair of boots. He hadn't been nervous this morning, hadn't been nervous on the train ride here, and even now… well, he wasn't as nervous as he had thought he'd be. He had gone to the post office yesterday morning and withdrawn thirty thousand yen from the postal savings account that he and Yasu jokingly referred to as the "date fund." It was enough for a nice dinner… and maybe for a hotel, if things went well. He had a new-ish pair of pants that Kiyomi hadn't seen yet, so he hadn't even needed to go shopping. Things were going well, and though he wasn't completely free of nerves, Teru hadn't been this relaxed about a date in years.

"Teru!"

He heard her voice before he saw her, a tiny, elegant figure standing on her toes and waving in an effort to be seen above the heads of the crowd. "Sorry I'm late!" Kiyomi burst through the crowd, laughing and panting at the same time. "I took the wrong train from Shibuya… I'm still not used to this city, I guess!"

Teru hesitated before taking her hand, and breathed a sigh of relief when she held his firmly in return. "It's okay," he reassured her. "I've only been here a few minutes. Are you hungry?"

Kiyomi's grin seemed to stretch from one ear to the other. "I haven't been this hungry in years!" she exclaimed. "I hope you know somewhere good. I've only been to Shinjuku a few times." She clutched her bag as though afraid that it might fly away, and looked up at the façade of Alta and the neon skyline beyond with an expression that could have indicated either wonder or fear.

"I know a few places," Teru replied. "You do like sashimi, right?"

The city seemed to suddenly lose it's fascination; Kiyomi's attention returned to Teru then, and her eyes were full of something that sparkled and burned. "I love it!" she cried. "Oh, Teru, this is going to sound silly, but… I'm so glad you were playing that night!"

Teru was not sure what to say to this, so he simply smiled and began to lead his date down the crowded streets of Kabukicho, to the izakaya he had found on the internet the night before. The website had promised an elegant, traditional atmosphere, and a variety of a rare and unusual sashimi and seafood dishes, including several types of fish that Teru had never heard of before. It was not the sort of place that people like himself could typically afford – and it was therefore absolutely perfect for a first date.

"Oh… it's beautiful!" Kiyomi put into words what Teru could only repeat to himself; the place_ was_ beautiful, but it would hardly be appropriate to compliment his own choice of restaurant. Instead, he smiled and made a noncommittal sort of shrug.

"Ah… a table for two, please."

The hostess was good – she hardly gave the pink hair and pleather a second glance. "Yes, sir. Please follow me." She led them to a booth in the rear of the izakaya, big enough for four and surrounded by a thin curtain that would give them some privacy from the other customers – mostly couples – seated around them. "Will this table be all right?"

"It's beautiful!" Kiyomi proclaimed, and slid onto the bench on the far side of the table, against the wall. Teru eased himself into the booth across from her, and the hostess left them alone with each other and an intimidating handwritten menu.

Before they had really had time to read it over, a waiter appeared to take their drink orders. Teru ordered a mug of beer, and Kiyomi decided, after much deliberation, on a pomegranate sour. "I haven't had one of those in ages," she mused after the waiter had left. "Not since the night we graduated… it's not a very common drink!" she explained to Teru, who usually stuck to the familiar ground that was whiskey and beer.

"The night we graduated?" Teru raised an eyebrow. "You've got a good memory. I don't really remember what I did." He opened the menu to the food selections. "Is there anything you don't like?"

Kiyomi shook her head, and silver earrings sparkled in the orange-tinted light. "You choose," she said. "I like everything, it takes me forever!"

"Okay…" Teru squinted at the menu, though he could read it perfectly well. There were so many choices, and he wasn't familiar with a good half of them. "Let's see… Raw octopus? That's unusual." Kiyomi nodded. "Fatty tuna, and bonito is in season. And shrimp? How about flying fish?"

Kiyomi agreed readily to everything that Teru suggested, and when the waiter returned with their drinks, they gave him an order so long that he had to reconfirm it twice. When they were alone again, Teru raised his beer, and allowed his eyes to meet Kiyomi's. "Well…" he began. "Here's to fate, I suppose. And to old friends."

"To fate," she echoed. "And to old, dear friends. _Kanpai!_"

Their glasses made a clinking sound as they met in the air above the table, and the taste of cold beer on a hot summer night was enough to wash all of the past few weeks' stress away.

"So," Kiyomi ventured, "What have you been doing since high school? Besides the band, that is."

"Besides the bad?" Teru laughed. "I don't have much time for anything else." He shook his head. "There's not much to tell, really. I live in Koenji, work at a convenience store… and then there's the band. You?"

"I told you everything before," she replied. "I work in Yokohama, live near Jiyuugaoka, go to shows on my days off… That's it! That's me." She took another sip of her drink. "And I think…" she continued slowly, running a single manicured finger carefully around the rim of her glass. "I think that I am going to let myself get very drunk tonight."

"Not yet!" Teru protested. He couldn't remember having laughed this much since… well, since high school. "The fish isn't here yet, and it's…" He made a show of pulling out his phone and checking the time. "Not even eight o'clock."

"Oh!" Kiyomi smiled demurely. "Well then, I'll drink slowly. For now. Do you remember sports day our third year?"

The sudden change of topic caught Teru a little off guard. "Ummm… sports day? N-no, not really. Should I?"

"I don't know. Do you remember Keisuke Watanabe?"

Teru took another sip of beer. "A little. We were never in the same class, but I remember his face."

Kiyomi smiled conspiratorially, but before she could continue her story, the waiter reappeared with a tray of fresh sashimi, spring rolls, and salad. "Here you are, sir," he named each dish individually and waited for Teru's confirmation before arranging the dishes artfully on the table. "Will there be anything else?"

Kiyomi's glass was nearly empty. "Do you want something else to drink?" Teru asked, then turned to the waiter. "I'll have another beer."

"And a gin and tonic," she added. "Oh, Teru, this looks delicious!"

The conversation slowed as both Teru and Kiyomi were completely absorbed in the luxurious fare. "Have you tried this yet?" she asked him, before taking the last piece of flying fish. "I feel like such a pig! Really, I don't normally eat so much!"

"It's fine." He smiled. "I'm glad you like it."

She giggled. "It's perfect. I mean that! Much better than our graduation trip… do you remember that? We didn't get to try any of the local specialties, and…"

Teru leaned back and listened to her reminiscing, smiling and nodding politely in the right places, but finding that he didn't have much to contribute. He remembered most of the things that she was talking about, but he hadn't thought about them in a long time. It was good to remember, though. High school wouldn't have been half bad, if only there hadn't been studying involved.

Beer and sashimi came and went, and Kiyomi's stories grew more and more animated as she finished off each cocktail with that sexy, secretive smile that he found himself more and more attracted to as the evening wore on. After awhile, Teru stopped talking entirely, and listening gave way to watching as he found that he was far more interested in the slender curve of Kiyomi's wrists and the way her eyes shone softly in the dim light than in making pleasant conversation. If things continued to go this well… He checked the time again. If they wanted to stay at a love hotel overnight, they would have to check in after ten. Just a little longer, then…

"Shall we have one more drink, then?" he suggested, feeling uncharacteristically bold. "If you're up to it, that is?"

Kiyomi cocked her head slightly to one side, and Teru found himself wondering what it would feel like to kiss that seductive little smile, to run his fingers through that long blue hair…

He shook his head fiercely. How had_ that_ thought worked its way into his mind?

"What's wrong, Teru?"

"Wh – what?" He blinked. "I'm sorry. Just… just getting a little tired, I guess. Did you want to have another drink?"

"I just said that I would love to." She laughed again, but the sound lacked much of its previous charm.

_Maybe I _am_ just tired…_

"If you're up to it, that is?" She echoed his earlier words with a smile. "Maybe a Kahlua Milk, this time?"

"Okay." Teru's throat was dry and his hands were shaking. "One beer, and one Kahlua Milk. Got it."

"You know, Teru…" Kiyomi blushed. "It still feels strange, calling you that. I wouldn't say this if I hadn't been drinking, but I think I'll be glad that I said it, in the morning. I still remember the first time I saw you, at our school entrance ceremony. And I liked you even then… even in a uniform, with black hair and unplucked eyebrows… I thought you looked pretty good. And I still do."

Teru drained the last of his current beer and moved the empty glass to the far side of the table in anticipation of the next. He wasn't sure how to answer that. "Ummm… that's…"

"Here you are, sir." The waiter saved him from having to make a reply. "One beer, and one Kahlua Milk. Will that be all?"

"Y – yes. Thank you."

Kiyomi raised the glass to her lips, and when she returned it to the table, the tiniest drop of milk lingered there, on her upper lip, as innocent and as provocative as the curve of her neck, the sweet scent of her perfume. He wondered what kind of lingerie she was wearing, how it would look against that smooth, creamy skin. She was so pale…

He wanted to undress her, to lower her to the hotel bed and gently slide her stockings down the long, slender stalks of her legs, to peel the clothing away slowly, one precious layer at a time.

What did he look like, under all of those clothes? Was his beautiful skin twisted, distorted by scars? Or did his injuries run deeper than that? Would his arm hurt him as Teru freed it carefully from the sling, as he held his poor hand and began to explore every eccentricity of that body…

"Teru?"

"Wh – what, ah, Kiyomi?" _That's right… Kiyomi… I'm with _Kiyomi

"Are you sure you're okay? Your face is bright red…"

Teru shifted uncomfortably in his seat. His pants seemed to have suddenly shrunk significantly, and the feelings that were coursing through his body may have been pleasant, were they not tainted with that same guilt, that same horror that had come with his mother's discovery, first of a girly magazine in his bedroom, and then of Teru himself, in the bathroom, with a picture of Sugizo in one hand and a wet washcloth in the other. It was dirty, it was wrong, it was unnatural.

_Rei. Is this what you've done to me?_

"Ahhh… I'm fine…" he stammered. "But – but maybe you're right. I'm sorry, Kiyomi… I had a good time, but this time… maybe we ought to go home?"

Her answering smile was gentle and seemed genuinely worried. "Of course! I'm sorry, I shouldn't have had so much to drink myself – Oh, but don't worry about me!" she protested when he tried to express his own concern. "I'm fine. Really! There's always next time, especially since we live in the same city now. Do – do you need to go to the restroom, or something?"

Teru shook his head. "No… I'm fine. And you're right, we have all the time in the world. Let's do this again sometime, okay?"

"Okay!"

"I'll call you…."

Kiyomi grabbed his hand and helped him to stand up, though he didn't really need it. "Silly!" she exclaimed. "Don't say goodbye yet. I'm still going to walk with you to the station!"

They walked to the station in silence, though it was more of a peaceful silence than an uncomfortable one. Kiyomi seemed to believe that Teru had simply had too much to drink, and since that was at least a part of the problem, it wasn't too difficult to fake. If she had noticed the uncomfortable bulge in his pants, she was either kind enough or embarrassed enough not to mention it, probably assuming it to be a reaction to her own feminine charms.

"Are you sure you're okay from here?" Kiyomi paused at the bottom of the steps leading up to the Chuo Line platform. "I've got to take the Yamanote to Shibuya. Call me when you get home, okay?"

"Okay." Teru nodded. "I'm fine, but thanks for… worrying, and everything."

When he reached the top of the stairs, the train was just pulling away. Teru sighed, but it was more out of habit than actual annoyance. Another one would be along in five or ten minutes; it wasn't late enough yet that he had to worry about the last train. He pulled out his phone and checked the time – almost 11. He checked his mail – nothing.

There had been nothing from Rei since that day at the studio, he realized. Nothing at all.

His fingers seemed to move of their own accord, opening the address book and moving down the list of names until the highlight bar rested on an entry with no surname, and a number that he hadn't dialed in a week.

"Yes?" Rei answered the phone on the second ring.

"Ahhh… it's, um, it's Teru…"

"Yes, I know that." His voice sounded distant, tired. Maybe a little annoyed.

Teru bit his lip. "Look, I know this is, erm… a little strange, but… are you busy? Tonight? Now?"

There was a long pause, and for a moment Teru was afraid that he had lost the connection, or that Rei, perhaps, had terminated it.

The answer was cold. "No."

"Can I…" He took a deep breath, and let the words came out in a single insane rush. "I'm in Shinjuku now. Can I come over?"

Another long pause. The lights on the platform began to flash, and a voice on the PA system announced the arrival of the next train, but Teru was already making his way back to the stairs.

"I don't suppose that telling you no would do any good, would it?"

The words were harsh, but the voice had softened, and Teru breathed a silent sigh of relief. "It wouldn't," he agreed. "I'll be there in thirty minutes."

* * *

**Notes:**

The idea of the "date fund" came from my ex-roommate, as an explanation as to how supposedly broke musicians can treat their dates to nice dinners. Don't know if it's true, but it seemed like a good detail to work in.

"Kanpai" means "cheers."

Love hotels are just what they sound like, hotels for the express purpose of, well… love. You can rent them for a few hours or overnight, but to get the overnight stay you have to go after a certain time. I said 10:00, not completely sure that that is the magic hour, but it's something like that. If the date went well, Kiyomi may have been expecting to be taken to one, but waiting till the second or third date isn't unheard of either, of course!

Sugizo is the (male) lead guitarist of Luna Sea, another famous visual rock band.

And thanks to the PPNers for the bulge… I actually don't remember everyone who was there at the time… but this one's for you!


	12. ikkoku

**Acknowledgements:**

Thanks as always to my readers and reviewers and my little troupe of fans… you know who you are! This story, and my inspiration to write it, would not be what they are without you, and I hope you know that too!

**Dedication:**

This chapter is respectfully dedicated to hide, Yoshiki, Taiji, Kami, the members of Akira, Kazuki of Raphael, Ryo of Visage… and any others who have had their music, freedom, or lives cut short by forces beyond their control. This chapter and this story are for you.

* * *

**Chapter 12: ikkoku - a moment -**

Teru paused for a moment in front of Rei's apartment. The adrenaline – and the alcohol – that had brought him this far were beginning to wear off, and for a spilt second he considered turning around, going back to Shinjuku, and taking his own train home. This was stupid. Rei didn't want to see him; that much had been clear on the phone. And though Teru was fairly sure that he did want to see Rei, he had no idea what he was going to say, or do, or feel when he did.

He took a deep breath, and turned the doorknob.

Nothing happened.

Teru blinked, and glanced up at the apartment's number plate for confirmation. It was room 108, the only unit in the building with no name beneath the number. It was the only pitch-black window with no sign of habitation – though now that he looked a little closer, Teru thought that he could make out a golden sliver of light, too bright to have belonged to that lonely little computer screen… Was this the wrong apartment, after all? He turned the knob again: nothing. The door was locked.

"Rei?"

He had no idea whether Rei – or whoever was in the apartment – would be able to hear his voice. This was a much nicer building than the one in which Teru lived; the walls were probably thicker, the windows better insulated for privacy and warmth. He knocked on the door, and the sound was much quieter than his own voice had been. He rang the doorbell.

And then he waited. Someone was home, he was sure of that, and Rei hardly seemed like the type to have houseguests. "Rei?" he called again. "It's me… It's Teru. Are you – are you alright? The door's locked…"

"I'm fine."

The door swung open, and Rei stood in the entrance hall, leaning slightly against the wall for support and breathing a little more heavily than usual, as though he had hurried to open the door. "Come in," he urged. "Quickly."

Teru's feet breathed a sigh of relief as he removed the offending boots and placed them carefully on the far right side of the entrance hall, taking care to point the toes outward like a proper guest. The lights were on in the apartment, though Teru wasn't entirely sure if that was an indication of trust, or merely a necessity.

For the first time since Teru had met him, Rei was not wearing any makeup, and though he had thrown some sort of shapeless cloak over his shoulders to answer the door, he appeared otherwise to be dressed in what could almost be considered "normal" clothes: a black turtleneck shirt and once-black sweatpants that had faded to something closer to navy. The long blue wig had been replaced by a shorter one in a slightly paler shade of blue, which sat a little lopsided on his head as though it had been donned in a hurry. Only the mask remained unchanged, perfect, as much a part of his face as the smooth, almost feminine lips or the over-plucked but perfectly curved eyebrow. Teru was fairly sure that the wig and the cloak had been added for his benefit and his benefit alone, but the mask… the mask was different, somehow.

Whether the lights were a display of trust or merely a sign of a recent change of clothes, Rei did not seem to be in any particular hurry to turn them off. He led Teru into the music room, moving at the same snail's pace that he had at the studio, though Teru was relieved to see that he seemed capable of walking at least this short distance without the aid of the cane. It shouldn't have mattered, but it did. Rei was strong and proud and beautiful – whether Teru's feelings for him were friendship, or fandom, or something else entirely, it hurt to see that strength compromised and destroyed.

"Sit." Rei took the sofa for himself, resting his right leg on a low ottoman that seemed to be a new addition to the room. Teru was left to sit on the ottoman's twin at the far side of the coffee table. "I don't mean to take the best seat in the house for myself." The laughter in his voice was forced and awkward. "I just… it hasn't been a good day."

He let the cloak fall from his shoulders and draped it over the far side of the sofa, allowing Teru to see the outline of his body in the tight turtleneck. He was slim, his stomach flat and apparently well-toned, the curve of his waist just sharp enough to be alluring, while still retaining a definite masculinity. His shoulders were broad only by comparison to his waist; for all of his height, Rei was not much bigger than Teru himself. His figure had been the perfect balance of masculinity and androgyny, the sort of body that would once have inspired forbidden fantasies in the minds of his fans… a body that might still have inspired them, were it not for its terrible lack of symmetry.

Rei lifted his right arm with his left, placing it gingerly atop a long pillow that lay across the sofa's armrest. Even without the sling, it looked lost and lonely, the only part of that perfect body that wasn't strong and toned and powerful. Where his left shoulder and bicep were firm and slightly rounded, his right shoulder fell away at an unnatural angle, as though it had once been dislocated and never repaired. Teru longed to look away, but he could not. He was as transfixed by Rei's weakness as he had been by his strength.

"Does it hurt?"

The question escaped his lips without bothering to seek permission from logic or common sense, and Teru felt the now-familiar rush of blood to his cheeks as his face painted itself bright red. Rei met his gaze for a moment, but looked away before answering. "Yes."

Teru nodded. He could think of nothing to say to that.

"I've been talking to the local CD shops about your single." Rei's voice trembled for a moment, but found a businesslike tone again and continued as though the topic of conversation had, from the beginning, been the upcoming CD release. "I've arranged for it to be sold at Brand X in Ikebukuro, Like an Edison in Shinjuku, Rock Love in Harajuku, and Third Stage in Meguro. I'm looking in to out of town releases as well. There's a shop in Shizuoka that might be interested, and one in Niigata…"

"Risky." Teru chimed in. His first band had sold their CDs there, once upon a time.

A smile spread its way unwillingly across Rei's masked face, though the dull gleam in his eyes did not match it. "So you _are _from Niigata. I thought I recognized your accent."

Teru nodded. "Sanjo, actually. It's not a secret…"

"It should be." Rei snapped, all business again. "You do a fairly good job of speaking the Tokyo dialect. As long as you don't get drunk on stage – and you don't seem like the type to do that – you'll be fine. Be careful in interviews, and if anyone asks, you either say Tokyo, or something mysterious like Mars, or France.

"Now," he continued, "if you'll take a look at that folder – " he indicated a single clear folder, lying on the coffee table between a stack of minidisks and a half-full bottle of whiskey. Though Rei seemed to have dressed himself in a hurry, Teru noted, the music and refreshments had been carefully prepared. It was hard not to smile at his host's sense of priority.

"If you look at that folder, you'll find two designs for the new CD jacket. I prefer the first one, but as it's not my decision to make, I'd appreciate it if you would ask the opinions of your bandmates this week, and let me know my Sunday which one they would like to use."

Teru glanced briefly at the designs – they looked almost identical to him – and slipped the folder into his bag. "Okay," he agreed. "I'll ask them."

Rei nodded. "I'm glad that you came tonight, Teru." The sentiment seemed forced, but Teru did his best to smile in response. "Would you like a drink?"

He did not wait for a reply, but poured two glasses of whiskey from the bottle on the table and passed one to Teru. "A toast," he proclaimed. "To La Rose Verboten, and to you, Teru."

Teru raised his glass and allowed it to meet Rei's in the air over the coffee table. "Not to me," he protested softly. "To music. _Kanpai_."

He took a sip, allowing the whiskey to do more than just moisten his lips, showing Rei that he trusted him, and that he trusted himself. "This is good," he said, and his smile became genuine. "Thank you."

"Tonight we have two reasons to celebrate." Rei returned his glass to the table and pointed to the stack of minidisks. "The new, CD, of course. And that white MD – yes, that one, at the top of the stack. That is La Rose Verboten's newest hit."

Teru picked it up and turned it over in his hand. There was no label, nothing at all written on the plain white disk. "Yami no Hanabira? Is this the final mix?"

Rei shook his head slowly, and his smile spread at last to his eyes. "No. Listen to it."

Teru's legs protested a little as he stood, unused to the height of the ottoman, though he did not dare to complain as he crossed the room to the expensive-looking stereo system and inserted the disk. "This is the play button?" he guessed.

"Yes."

And music flooded the room. It was not Yami no Hanabira; though Teru had no doubt that the two pieces had been written by the same composer, their similarities ended there. Where the twin guitars had made passionate love to one another in the older song, they warred in violent harmony in this new one. The drums were thunder, rather than heartbeats, and the bass beat like a heart that was about to explode. Where Yami no Hanabira had grieved and hoped, this new song wailed in fruitless despair. It was violent, it was angry, it was bitter – and yet it managed to be the saddest thing that Teru had ever heard.

"You wrote this…" The words came out as little more than a sigh, a barely audible half-question that Rei either failed to hear or chose to ignore as it was swallowed alive by the advent of the vocals.

The voice on the recording was, to Teru's surprise, melodic and musical, completely at odds with the raw anguish of the accompaniment – and yet, completely appropriate. It was a love song, and yet it was not. While the guitars screamed and the drums exploded, the vocals soared over it all in sensational praise of eternal love and unfading beauty.

The voice was Rei's, of course – Teru had no doubt about that. It was easy to imagine him on stage, the streaming rays of the spotlight burning crystal lines in his hair, the line of his mouth contorted as he sang of a love that was at once vanished and imagined. It was easy to imagine him, perfect and whole, leaning over the crowd as he grasped the microphone like a lifeline with both hands, singing not for the crowd, but for the music….

"It's beautiful." The song faded, and Teru's voice in its place was weak and insignificant. "There's no way that I can sing it… not like that."

He allowed himself to look at Rei, then, to stare him in the face with the mingled impudence of youth and inebriation, muted only slightly by complete and total awe. The eyes that stared back at him, however, were adamant and cold.

"You will," insisted Rei. "You must, Teru. There is no one else."

"I can't."

"You must." Rei closed his eyes and leaned backward, allowing his head to rest against the back of the sofa. He looked tired, exhausted, as though he had gone without sleeping for days. "My music is for you, Teru. Take it. Give it to the world. If you do not sing it…" His eyes flew open to accuse the ceiling of a crime it had ever committed. "If you do not sing it, it dies."

"I – I didn't mean that." Teru protested. He could feel his face growing red, and his tongue stumbled drunkenly over the words. "I'll sing it. I never said that I wouldn't… just that I couldn't. Not like you. Rei, I… your voice… it's beautiful. I could never sing like you."

"And I could never sing like you. Does that make either of us better than the other?"

Teru shook his head. "No. I – I just…" But he didn't know what he had meant to say, not really. He was drunk, he was confused. He shouldn't have come here. "I'm sorry. I should be going. The last train – "

"Has come and gone." Rei brushed a stray bit of hair out of his face in an obvious effort at nonchalance.

Teru retrieved his bag from the floor next to the ottoman and glanced at his phone. It was after 12:30; even if the Yamanote Line was still running, there wouldn't be any connecting trains out of Shinjuku. "Don't worry about me." He lowered his head in apology. "I can take a taxi home."

"Don't be silly." Rei raised his head and looked Teru in the eyes again. "You will take the song, and you will sing it. Modesty is not a bad quality to have, but you must learn to show appropriate gratitude when you are given a gift. And that means," he explained as he gathered the cast-off cloak into his lap and carefully situated his bad arm on top of it, "that you will thank me properly when I offer to let you spend the night."

"I – I can't," Teru stammered.

"You will." Rei gestured to the now-empty space beside him on the sofa. "I insist. Now, you are my guest, not my student. Sit here, beside me. Let us relax. Let us talk. Tell me about yourself, Teru."

"No." Teru shook his head, and for once, he knew that he meant it. He would sit here, on this sofa, next to this man. He would face his fears and whatever other emotions had ruined his date and were threatening to ruin his life. But he could not comply with Rei's request. If they were going to have a relationship of any kind, it had to at least somewhat equal. Teru's life was not a secret, but it was_ his_ life – and he wasn't going to share it with Rei unless he got something in return.

His glass was nearly empty; he took the bottle of whisky from the table and, without asking permission, poured himself a second glass before taking a seat on the sofa. The first sip was followed by a deep breath, and he shook his head again. "I cant. I won't."

"Tell me your story." Rei took a sip from his own glass. "You have not been in Tokyo long. Why did you come? Where is your family? How did you become… the man that you are today?"

The words made Teru uncomfortable, but his alcohol-inspired confidence would not be shattered. "No," he repeated, and the word grew cold. "You know about me. You know who I am, and I won't tell you any more until you return the favor. The last train has come and gone. We have all the time in the world." He took a deep breath and another sip of whiskey. "So, _you_ tell _me_. What happened to you, Rei?"

For a long moment, neither of them spoke, or moved, or breathed. The air in the room seemed to have grown frigid and heavy – or perhaps it was only the stiffening of Rei's shoulders and the almost-angry set of his lips.

"I told you," he whispered at last. "It was an accident."

"I want to know," Teru insisted gently. "I want to know who you are…"

Rei shook his head. "This isn't who I am." He lowered his gaze to his lap, to the hand that lay there, limp and lifeless. The subject seemed to be closed. Teru had touched on something forbidden – he had known it, and he had asked the question anyway. It wasn't only the conversation that was over; Rei would throw him out of the house now, would ask him to take a taxi after all. And Teru knew that it would be perfectly reasonable for him to do so.

But Rei said nothing at all. He simply sat there, staring at his own body as though assessing the damage for the first time.

"We were on tour." His voice was quiet, barely audible, and it cracked a little as though it has not been used in a long time. "Our first tour. It was our big chance – the record label told us so. If the tour went well, they'd see what they could do. If the tour went well, our first album would be on shelves within the year." He shook his head, still refusing to meet Teru's eyes. "And the tour was going well."

He drained the last of his whiskey, and his hand trembled uncontrollably as he replaced the empty glass on the coffee table. "I don't remember much. We were on our way to Sendai, five of us in a van on the Tohoku Expressway. A band with a future. Stupid boys with stupid dreams. And when I woke up… I was alone."

"It was a car accident?"

Rei lowered his head further, allowing the wig to conceal his face completely, though his voice had begun to resemble more closely its typical, emotionless self. "They told me I was lucky. I was only crushed _half _to death, you see." He laughed bitterly. "An interesting definition of luck."

Teru's stomach had begun to work itself into an uncomfortable knot; there was no polite response to something like this, nothing that he could say or do to change anything. But he had to say something, or the silence would kill him. He had to say something…

"So, all of… that…"

Rei laughed again. "Eloquent as always, aren't we? Shall I spell it out to you? My leg was crushed, shattered… there's more metal in there than bone now. And that was the best of it. Broken ribs, a punctured lung – that's a lovely mental image now, isn't it? I woke up with my arm in traction…" His voice fell to a whisper again, and he raised his head to look Teru in the eyes.

Teru would have given anything to be able to look away from those terrible eyes, those eyes that burned with self-loathing and pity – but there was something else there, too, and that something else made him stay. Made him listen, though he didn't want to hear what would be said.

"I couldn't feel a thing," Rei continued. "Not even the pain, not then. It was just – gone. I called the nurse. I had to know. I asked her when I would be able to play the piano again, when I would be able to play the guitar. Years, I thought. If I believed it would be years, then I wouldn't be shattered when she told me months… I had to believe the worst, I thought. And then…"

"She told you never." Tears threatened the corners of Teru's eyes as he completed the sentence.

Rei nodded in confirmation, though his own eyes remained horribly dry. "Nerves, apparently, cannot knit themselves back together as neatly as bones can. Not that the bones seem to have done a wonderful job of it either." He took a ragged breath. "And then…"

Although he could not had recalled exactly when he had taken it, Teru found himself holding Rei's hand, stroking the back of it gently with his thumb. He squeezed it a little harder then, as he would have done with Kiyomi, with any silly girl who was crying about a hated co-worker or a sappy movie. It wasn't nearly enough, an empty gesture that was most likely highly inappropriate, but he could think of nothing else that he could do.

"And then?"

A tear slipped down Rei's cheek at last and trembled ominously at the corner of his mouth.

"You can tell me, Rei… Please… what happened?"

"I asked for a mirror."

The anguish in his eyes betrayed the calm composure of his reply.

Teru nodded and continued to stroke his hand. "So the mask… I thought so."

"You don't understand." Rei tried to pull his hand away, but Teru wouldn't allow it.

"What do you mean, I don't understand? How can I understand if you don't tell me?"

"How_ could_ you understand?" From beyond the mask, beyond the cloud of plastic turquoise hair, a pair of deep, almost-black eyes accused and pleaded. "You've never been anything but beautiful. How could you – "

"Let me see you." Teru was surprised by the strength in his own voice. He raised a hand to stroke the edge of the mask. "I want to understand."

Rei pulled away. "No. You can't."

"I don't care what you look like."

"You would, if you knew." Rei shook his head. "What are you imagining, Teru? This – " he succeeded in pulling his hand free of Teru's grasp at last, and used it to indicate the exposed left side of his face – "with a few burns, a few scars?"

Teru was beyond the point of being able to reason about such things. "I don't care," he insisted. "You're beautiful, Rei. I don't fucking _care_!"

Rei closed his eyes slowly, and a second silent tear fell down his cheek. That tear challenged Teru, dared him. It dared him to rip the mask away, proving that he didn't care and that he could understand. It dared him to run, to wash himself of a situation that was only causing him more senseless pain on behalf of someone he barely knew. And it dared him to do something else, as well.

The kiss lasted only a moment, the innocent brushing of lips against childish lips in the middle of the night when the watchful eyes of parents weren't around. It was a second, or a fraction of a second, but it was a fraction of a second in which the tears were swept away and guilt vanished in the face of necessity. When Teru pulled away, he was fulfilled. And when Rei pulled away…

"You should go to sleep. It's late." He stood up as quickly as he could, pulling the cloak awkwardly around his shoulders as he did so.

"Rei, I – " Teru was not sure whether to apologize or explain, and so he did neither.

"I have some work to do," Rei continued as though he had not heard. "You can use that pillow, and I will bring you a blanket. The first train is at 4:33 in the morning." He hesitated for a moment in the doorway. "Goodnight, Teru."

Teru was not at all tired, not anymore, but he curled himself into a ball on the couch and closed his eyes. He had overstepped his boundaries enough for one night. "Goodnight," he whispered as the half-sleep of drunkenness took him. "Goodnight, Rei."

* * *

**Notes:**

Sorry for the delay in getting this chapter up! Personal things, work etc. kept me from working on it as quickly as I'd have liked to. I'll try to be better with the next one.

First important-ish note… I actually did do a lot of medical research for this story. That said, I am not a doctor, and I even weaseled my way out of Biology 2 in high school, so… I did my best, let me know if there are any glaring errors in anything that comes up in this story.

All of the CD shops mentioned in this chapter are real, well, except for Rock Love which closed a couple of years ago. A shame, it was a great store!

About the dialect… the Sanjo dialect is fairly distinctive and pretty hard to understand to someone who's only lived in the Tokyo area. However, 99 of TV announcers etc speak the Tokyo dialect, so Teru would have no trouble "faking it," though how he speaks around his friends might not be the same as a Tokyo native… if that makes sense. Basically any musician who doesn't use the Tokyo dialect (or at least the Osaka dialect) on stage has little change of ever making it big, so mostof themfake it!

Rei has minidisks! MDs are a REALLY common format in Japan, though they never caught on in the States (not sure about the rest of the world). They are small disks about 3 inches or so in diameter, inside a plastic case, that can hold a little more than 2 CDs worth of music.

And the first train from Meguro to Shinjuku really is at 4:33 in the morning. I know that no one would notice if I had that wrong but, eh, it's a fun fact!

As always, please let me know what you think… I'm always scared when it comes to posting an "important" chapter!


	13. yokujitsu

**Acknowledgements:**　Special thanks to musiqueetamour for beta-ing! I know, I had sworn off betas forever… but they make things better, they really do! Thanks Erik!

Thanks as well to all of my readers, reviewers, squee-ers, etc. This story certainly wouldn't be what it is without you!

**Chapter 13: yokujitsu the next day**

A narrow beam of sunlight cut a path of morning across the total darkness of the room, teasing Teru's eyes open with a promise of a new day. He blinked groggily, unsure for a moment of where he was; he was lying on his back, an unfamiliar blanket across his chest, and an unfamiliar ceiling above him. His mouth was dry and his eyes were filled with an unpleasant grit. This, at least, was familiar territory, though it had been a long time since he'd had so much to drink... What _had _he been doing last night, anyway?

He closed his eyes, preferring darkness at the moment to even the meager morning light, and forced himself to replay the previous evening in his head. He had been with Kiyomi; he remembered that. They had both had a lot to drink, but he hadn't taken her to a hotel. T hey had said goodbye at the station, had taken their separate trains...

_But we didn't._ They had gone to the station, yes... had said their goodbyes. _But I took the Yamanote Line too..._

His head was made of solid iron, and it throbbed like a bass drum to the rhythm of a strangely disjointed piano line that repeated itself again and again inside his mind, always seeming like a missing part of something, though Teru could not remember what the rest of the piece had been. Over and over, the same series of notes; an insubstantial line of counter-melody that seemed a strange thing to be stuck on mental repeat. It was impossible to think like this – what _was _this damn song?

And then the music stopped, and Teru's eyes flew opened in terrified realization. The phone call, the song, the story... the kiss. It had to have been a dream...

But the unfamiliar ceiling gave way to walls that were familiar enough, to the desolate flicker of a computer screen, and to the dark figure who sat at the keyboard, picking out another bit of melody with his left hand, over and over and over again until he was finally satisfied.

Rei did not seem to notice that Teru was awake; he did not look up as he clicked and dragged something within the software program, and pressed another button that set the music into motion, bringing the nausea that lingered in Teru's stomach into his throat with a violent jolt. What had seemed to be two disjointed lines of notes came together to form a living, organic, beautiful melody. It had not been a bit of something forgotten, he realized, but a half of something whole. A piano piece written for ten fingers, played instead on two sets of five.

Teru rolled onto his side. His head still hurt and he would have killed for a drink of anything besides whiskey, but for the moment it was enough to lie here, silent, watching the bits of music trickle from those fingers in broken pieces. He could not imagine what it must be like, to have a complete song trapped in his head, being forced to break it down into parts and reassemble it in the outside world. Teru was not a composer, and he probably never would be; it was one more thing about Rei that he could never completely understand.

Rei lifted his gaze to the screen once more, adjusting something in the program before returning his attention to the keyboard. A stray bit of dim bluish light illuminated the edges of the mask on his nose and forehead, and Teru felt an uncomfortable twinge in his stomach. He had pushed things too far last night. He could blame it on the alcohol easily enough – it wouldn't even be a lie. He never would have had enough courage to do what he had done if he'd been sober. But the alcohol hadn't been the only contributing factor, and he wasn't entirely sure that he even regretted what he'd done.

Those lips...they had been every bit as soft as a woman's, shy and hesitant, but they had welcomed Teru readily enough. Those eyes... burning with pain, with longing... and maybe with relief? That body... so beautiful in its imperfection, though it made Teru's stomach turn to admit it, even to himself. Rei had changed him, and he wasn't sure that he liked who he was becoming. But he wasn't sure that he hated it either; he couldn't tear his eyes away.

"You can stop staring now."

Teru jumped. "Wh– what?"

"I said you can stop staring now." Rei reached for the mouse again, making a point of not looking in Teru's direction as he continued to manipulate objects on the screen. "The trains should be running again. It's after ten o'clock."

Considering the amount he'd had to drink, Teru was surprised that he'd managed to wake up before noon. "Look... about last night..." His tongue felt like a dirty sock in his mouth, dry and sluggish and unwilling to form anything resembling words.

"Last night was a mistake."

"Um... yeah..." Teru's heart sank. "A mistake. So... I'm sorry. It won't..." He took a deep breath, trying to ignore his insanely throbbing skull. "It won't happen again."

He forced himself into a sitting position, and the world began to spin. His head felt as if it had swollen to twice its normal size, and it took all of his strength just to hold it up. _A mistake_. That was all that it had been. Rei had been vulnerable, Teru had felt sorry for him and that had led to a situation that neither of them had intended. _Of course._ It would be stupid to interpret it any other way.

Teru's bag had fallen to the floor sometime during the course of the night; he picked it up now and began to check its contents: wallet, phone, keys, a handful of receipts from restaurants and convenience stores, half a pack of cigarettes and a lighter, a condom, and the things that Rei had given him last night, the CD covers and the little white mini-disk. He had everything. The trains were running again. There was no reason to stay, and yet his feet did not want to carry him to the door.

"Um... Rei?"

Another bit of music died away, and the composer lifted his hand from the keyboard with what Teru's untrained eye saw as the elegance of a concert pianist. "Yes?"

The little bag seemed twice its normal weight, but Teru forced himself to lift it, to sling it over one shoulder as he headed for the door. "Look... I can't understand what you've been through. I know that. But... if you ever need to... I don't know, talk... or something?"

"I'm fine."

"I really don't care... you know..." The concept of coherent speech was too much for Teru's aching mind to handle.

Though Rei continued to stare at the computer screen, his shoulders stiffened visibly and he sat up a little straighter in his chair. "I told you," he began, softly and deliberately. "It was a mistake. As we seem to be in agreement on this issue, there is no need for further discussion. I am a busy man, Teru. You are not my only concern, and at the moment you are keeping me from my work. Do you understand?"

Though he knew that Rei could not see him, Teru nodded, unable to speak.

"I am waiting for your decision regarding the CD cover. That will be all."

Rei returned to the keyboard and began to tap out the next piece of melody, ignoring Teru as completely as though he had already left.

There were no goodbyes, no plans to meet again. Rei would remain in the darkness, in the music, in the little world of solitude that he had created for himself. And Teru would step into the sunlight, cursing his long hair and his black pleather pants on a hot summer morning as he was forced to face the world. At least he didn't have work today. The thought of facing his band-mates at rehearsal tonight was only slightly preferable, but at least then he could hide behind the music. If only the music didn't belong to Rei as well...

The sky overhead was a bright, clear blue, sprinkled only intermittently with the innocent sort of clouds that could not have shed a drop of rain if they tried. Wealthy mothers and their pampered children were out in force on the streets of Meguro, chattering cheerfully about whatever diversion they had planned for this beautiful Sunday afternoon, shining in their brand-name clothes and brand-name strollers, the epitome of happiness and naïveté. No one but Teru could see the dark cloud that hung over the day; that hung over the world. No one but Teru was grieving for something that had happened on the Tohoku Expressway years ago, and for something else that had died before it had had a chance to happen at all.

He had wanted it, or at least a part of him had, and he wasn't sure if it was the desire that was bothering him, or the fact that the desire had gone unfulfilled. Teru wasn't gay. He couldn't be. He had slept with girls – with _lots_ of girls – and he'd liked it, most of the time. When he looked at men, it wasn't because he wanted them... it was because he wanted to _be_ them. Of course he thought Toshi and Yoshiki and Sugizo were sexy... but that was natural, wasn't it? They were his idols, and besides, they looked like girls anyway, most of the time.

Not that he had ever dared to speak of those particular fantasies to any of his friends. Yasu had leant him some videos, some magazines, featuring a girl that he especially liked – what was her name? Satomi, or Satoko something? Some of them had been pretty explicit – bondage and S&M seemed to be the actress's specialty. And then there had been those other girls – what had he called them? The Isesaki Sisters? They couldn't really have been sisters, of course; Teru was sure that real sisters would never have been allowed to make a video like the one that Yasu had showed him. It had made him a little uncomfortable – even if they were only actresses, the idea of two sisters hadn't exactly turned him on. But Yasu was his friend, and they did talk about things like that... _Just never about things like _this

"Fuck." Teru leaned against one of the advertisements lining the walls of the station, closing his eyes against the sunshine and fluorescent lights as he dug through his bag for the pack of cigarettes. This was too much to deal with right now. He had rehearsal tonight to think about, that damn CD cover... and then there was always Kiyomi.

That was a safer line of thought. She was sweet, pretty, successful... and when it came down to it, it would just be a hell of a lot easier to start that phone call to his parents with "You remember Kiyomi from high school?" than with "Look, I met this man..."

_Not that they're likely to take a call from me in the first place, but still..._

The battery on his phone was running a little low, but if he went home and charged it before rehearsal, it wouldn't be a problem to make a quick phone call now. Teru took a deep breath. This was the right thing to do – no, the _only_ thing to do. His date hadn't been a smashing success, but it hadn't been a miserable failure either. There was still time to do things the way that they ought to be done.

"Hello?" Kiyomi answered on the fourth ring, her voice groggy with sleep. "Masa– Teru?" She giggled, though that sound, too, was a tired shadow of its usual bright self. "Can't I call you Masato on the phone?"

"Um... Kiyomi?" Teru didn't feel like addressing that particular issue at the moment. He hated his real name with a passion, and since coming to Tokyo had used it only when he absolutely had to. But Kiyomi didn't know that, he reminded himself. And there would be time to talk about it later.

"How are you feeling?" he continued. "I mean... we both had a lot to drink last night. Do you have to work today?"

Her laugh sounded a little more genuine this time. "No, no work. I'm fine, really. Are you okay? You seemed kind of... I don't know, worried about something?"

"Yeah... well, the band and all," he lied. "I've been really busy lately. But I just wanted to let you know... you know, that it had nothing to do with you. I had a good time. Really. And I meant what I said – I would like to see you again sometime."

"Me too." Teru could almost see her smile, and he found himself smiling back at the crowded train station. "I want to see you again, and I mean that too! Look... I can't talk for long. And," she echoed, "it has nothing to do with you! I promised to meet a friend for lunch, and I've already overslept! So thanks for waking me up."

Teru laughed. "No problem. I mean... anytime?"

"Yeah, anytime!" She sounded fully awake now, like her old self. "So I'll see you soon, then?"

"Sure. See you soon."

Teru tossed the phone back into his bag with a smile. Talking to Kiyomi made him feel good, made him laugh and smile. With her, there was no danger, no guilt, no pity. It would be so easy to fall in love with her...

_Then why the hell can't I stop thinking about _him?

* * *

**Notes:**

When I uploaded this chapter, for whatever reason, some of my punctuation marks were turned into other symbols! I went through and tried to correct them all, but if I missed any, please let me know! That's about it... just apologizing in advance in case someone finds a misplaced symbol of some kind.


	14. kettei to un

**Chapter 14: kettei to un decisions and fate**

It had been with no small amount of reluctance that Teru's boss had allowed him to take both Saturday and Sunday off, and until about halfway through the second day of his weekend, Teru had considered the little vacation to be a special treat. As soon as he returned to his apartment that afternoon, however, he began to wish that he had something – even a line of impatient customers and a string of co-workers calling in sick – to take his mind off of everything that had happened. Everything that he did reminded him of Rei, or Kiyomi, or both of them. Any music that he played started to sound like Rei's, and the only channel that really came in clearly on his ancient TV was playing some sappy "true story" about a mother estranged from her gay son.

Frustrated, he threw the remote control to the floor, and decided to take a shower instead. There was nothing there to remind him of anything, after all. But the nothingness, as well, proved to be a curse. Teru's mind always wandered in the shower, but today, instead of wandering to the stage and the crowd, he found himself wandering back to the izakaya in Shinjuku, to Kiyomi, to their goodbye at the station. He remembered calling Rei now, but he didn't remember what he had said, and by the time he turned the water off and wrapped a towel around his dripping mess of hair, he was even more on-edge than he had been before.

He looked at himself in the mirror. He had changed. The face that stared back at him was the same: pale skin, over-plucked eyebrows and a smooth chin that never grew more than a few scattered hairs. A scattering of light freckles across his cheeks and nose – Teru hated them, but they were concealed easily enough by a little foundation. A nose that was neither too big nor too small, unremarkable in every way. Pale lips, as thin and as pink as they had been the day before… but those lips had grown up. Those lips had left a beautiful woman without so much as a peck, and then had turned their attention elsewhere. And the eyes…. 　Teru did not recognize the tired eyes that stared back at him now, rimmed with dark circles as though they had not slept in a week.

Although rehearsal wasn't scheduled to begin until seven, Teru ended up leaving his house a little after five. Almost as an afterthought, he threw a pair of drumsticks into his bag along with his wallet and phone and the little white MD. The idea of pounding the hell out of something didn't exactly seem like a bad one; if no one had the studio before seven, some private time with the drum set might be just the thing to get all of this shit out of his system.

La Rose was booked into Studio C from seven to nine and, as luck would have it, the previous band had scheduled their own rehearsal to end at six. Teru was welcome to use the studio for that hour, the receptionist explained as she penciled him in, and she would send his bandmates in when they arrived. The studio fee wasn't cheap, especially when it wasn't being split four ways, but Teru had the remainder of his "date fund" burning a hole in his wallet, and with no dates scheduled for the immediate future there was no good reason not to spend it on his original love.

He didn't bother to tune the drums, didn't give a damn about how he sounded. A few minutes were all that he needed to approximate the settings that he was used to, and then there was all the time in the world simply to play.

Teru closed his eyes and let his body go where it wanted to go. It found a rhythm easily enough; despite the fact that he hadn't touched a drum in weeks, he had years of practice, years of repetition that wouldn't be so easily forgotten. It was the same pattern over and over again – nothing showy, nothing difficult, just all of the guilt and stress expressing itself in varying degrees of loud.

_Crash. _The kiss had never happened. _Bang._ He didn't give a damn about the mask. _Boom_. And he hadn't been walking around in a fucking _cloud_ all day feeling _sorry_ for some stuck-up _bastard_ who was getting all the _pity_ that he _needed_ from him_self_! He punctuated each burst of anger with a beat, ignoring the protests of his aching muscles as he drove toward a frustrated climax. He did care, that was the problem, and no matter how long he spent in this studio, pounding out his problems on these drums, concern didn't turn to hatred quite so easily.

"Damn!" He threw the drumsticks to the floor and buried his face in the ragged towel that he had been using on stage for the past two years. But it wasn't just the sweat that he wanted to wipe away.

"Teru?"

"Yuu?" Teru's heart leapt into his throat. How long had Yuu been here? Had an hour passed by already? He didn't dare to look up from the towel, not yet. He didn't know what his face would look like when he did.

The band leader laughed nervously. "I suppose this wouldn't be the time to tell you that I may have found a new drummer?"

Teru's curiosity got the better of him and he let the towel fall into his lap as his eyes met Yuu's. "Really? Who is he?" He stole a glance at the clock; it hadn't been an hour after all, Yuu was about ten minutes early. It wasn't really worth it to complain about the loss of his private studio time, however. He'd basically been done, and besides, the sooner he could give that damn MD to someone else, the better.

Yuu propped his guitar case against the far wall and unzipped the outside pocket, retrieving a CD-R in a plastic sleeve. "Have you ever heard of Cinderella?"

"Not unless you mean the Disney movie, no." Teru shook his head.

"I haven't either, actually. He calls himself Nao, and he used to play for a visual band called Cinderella. I've got their CD. The sound quality is shit," Yuu admitted, "but he's a decent drummer, and doesn't seem like a bad guy."

Teru nodded, retrieving the drumsticks from the floor and returning them to his bag. "Sounds good."

"Yeah. I'm thinking about inviting him to our next rehearsal. I need to talk about it with everyone, though. Are you up for a meeting tonight?"

"Sure." Teru pulled the MD from his bag and offered it to Yuu. "I've got a few things to talk about too."

Yuu raised an eyebrow. "What's this?"

"It's, um… a new song." He was surprised at how easily the words came. "From my friend. The one who wrote Yami no – "

"Rei?"

"Ah… yes?" Teru's face burned; he had forgotten for a moment that Yuu and Rei had actually met one another. "Yes, that's right, I mean. Rei."

Yuu nodded thoughtfully. "Okay. We'll listen to this too." He stacked the CD and the MD on top of one of the guitar amps. "And… Teru?"

"Yeah?"

"Hello, boys! How arewe this lovely evening?" Seika swept through the door and into the middle of their conversation, seemingly unmindful of the fact that he had interrupted anything at all.

Yuu laughed. "It's nothing important. I just didn't get a chance to thank him, not really. If you could tell him that we appreciate everything?"

"Sure." Teru agreed. "We're okay, Seika. How are you?"

"I spent the night in the arms of the most wonderful little boy!" He gushed. "Not that the two of you would be remotely interested…"

Yuu winced, but Teru knew that it was more for show than anything else. They were both used to Seika's stories by now, and knew that most of them had to be taken with a grain of salt. Teru, however, was unable to think of anything at all to say or do in response. Maybe he hadn't exactly spent the night in Rei's arms, but suddenly Seika's lifestyle didn't seem like much of a joke anymore. "That's good." He smiled feebly. "Um… has anyone heard from Yasu?"

"I'm here, I'm here!" The circles under Yasu's eyes were, if anything, wider and darker than Teru's. "Worked all night, overslept, but I'm here! Let's play!"

Teru's smile widened and grew into a real one. Whatever else he had, at least he had friends… and the band. "Yeah, let's play," he echoed. "I have a good feeling about tonight."

At Teru's insistence, they ran through Yami no Hanabira first. He reasoned that he wasn't going to be able to focus on anything if he spent the entire evening worrying about having to sing Rei's song. Better to get it over with, get it out of his system. And once it was gone, and the only thing left to dread was that little white MD staring at him from its vantage point atop the amp… well, he really did start to feel better.

When Yuu stopped rehearsal at a quarter to nine, Teru was almost sad to see the evening coming to an end. This was fun, really, playing with his friends, making the kind of music that he loved. It was easy to forget that, sometimes, but it really was… just fun.

"Okay, meeting tonight!" Yuu announced. "Mandatory! There are a lot of things we need to talk about, but before we lose the studio and the stereo system for the night, let's get the musical discussions out of the way. First of all, I've met a drummer who may be interested in replacing Teru. We have a recording of his old band. It's not much, quality-wise, but as you can hear, he's a pretty good player." He slipped the CD into the player and let the first few minutes of an unremarkable but competently performed song fill the room.

"Not bad." Yasu tapped his foot to the beat. "Not brilliant, either, but neither is the song."

Yuu pressed the eject button and slid the CD back into its sleeve. "Exactly. We won't know for sure until we hear him play _our_ music, but…"

"He sounds good." Seika finished.

Teru was silent. He agreed with the others; the drummer on the CD was at least as proficient as he had ever been. But he was beginning to wish that he had insisted on listening to the other recording first.

"So, we all agree to give him a shot, then?" Yuu glanced at Teru, who murmured his consent. "Okay. We'll talk specifics at the meeting. Now, one more thing. Teru's friend Rei has kindly written us another song. I haven't heard it yet, either, but if it's anything like his last one… Well, let's listen, anyway?"

The first time he had heard the song, Teru's mind had been overwhelmed by the shocking contrast of the almost operatic vocals against the heavy metal guitars. The second time, however, he knew what to expect. It was still intense, but he was able to ignore the shock and to focus instead on the details of the music.

The guitars were real. That was the first thing that he noticed, though it took him a verse and a half to convince himself that it was true. The guitars, the bass, the drums… they weren't synthesized. Someone was actually playing them, and it couldn't possibly have been Rei. Teru remembered the smashed and broken guitar he had seen on his first visit to Rei's apartment – had it been destroyed before the accident, or after? And even if the guitar itself had been intact, there was no way that Rei could have played it… not with his arm the way it was, not with zero chance of recovery. He'd hired someone to play it, then. It wasn't exactly an inconceivable idea. But it also seemed like a lot of trouble to go through for a demo, when sheet music and a synthesizer would have worked just as well.

"Your friend's not a bad guitarist, is he?" Yasu raised an eyebrow, and more than one question was written on his face..

Teru shrugged. "I don't think he played it all himself."

"I don't care who played it," announced Seika. "It's incredible. Did he give you the score for this one too?"

Teru shook his head. "Um… no. Not yet. But I can ask for it. I need to talk to him anyway…" He stared at his feet. "About the CD, and… other things."

Yuu nodded. "At the meeting. We have lots of things to talk about. Let's get our things out of here, for now."

When the instruments had been packed back into their cases and the studio fees collected and paid, the four of them relocated to a Denny's a few blocks away and ordered a table full of greasy delicacies. "Ahhh, the joys of gourmet dining!" Seika remarked with a good-natured smirk before they dug in.

"Alright." Yuu rested his fork on the edge of his plate for a moment and forced his face into a serious expression. "Now, I called this meeting for a reason." When he had the attention of the others, however, he cracked a smile. "I have two pieces of news, both good. First of all, our next show, two weeks from today. We already have nineteen names on our reservation list, and about half of those have never booked through us before."

Teru's mouth fell open. _Nineteen?_ Even with Bara, they had never had nineteen reservations two weeks before a show. "That's… that's…" _That's intimidating_, he admitted to himself, but he couldn't very well say it aloud. "That's great."

"But it's nothing compared to this." Yuu's smile widened as he pulled a folded piece of paper from his pocket and spread it on the table for the others to see. "It came yesterday. A letter from one of the editors of _Shoxx_. They want to do an interview."

This time Teru wasn't the only one with a look of utter disbelief on his face. _Shoxx_? Sure, they covered indies bands as well as major, would give a tiny blurb in the back to anyone who paid for advertising space – but an interview? "Wh – when?" Teru stammered. "How?"

"She didn't give me any specifics," Yuu admitted. "But she must have been at Cyber. Look at this." He pointed out a single line of the letter.

"If possible, we would also like to request a brief one-on-one interview with your vocalist, Teru."

"And, let's be honest, that first show of yours at Maykan wasn't going to get any of us an interview." Yuu grinned, but Teru could only stare blankly at the letter. _They want an interview with me…_ He wasn't sure whether to be proud, or shocked… or simply ashamed. He was probably the least deserving of the four of them. But he knew that he would do the interview anyway.

"And Teru, you had some things to talk about, too?" Yuu retrieved the letter from the table and refolded it as though it were nothing more significant than a napkin.

"Ummm… that's right, yes." Teru dug though his bag for the CD cover images. "These are from Rei," he explained, spreading them on the table between the plates of food. "He's been talking to CD shops about… about the new single. And these are for the cover. So, erm… I guess I have to tell him which one we want to use."

"I like this one." Yuu indicated the cover that Rei had preferred. The designs were almost identical, but the coloring on this one was a bit darker, a bit more subdued than the other.

"Really?" Seika picked up the two and compared them under the light of the bulb hanging over the table. "I like the other one. It's a little brighter. I don't think the song is that dark… it's hopeful, isn't it?" He looked as Teru as though seeking confirmation.

Teru shrugged. "Rei liked the darker one better too."

Yasu took the two images from Seika and compared them for himself. "I guess I like the brighter one a little better. But if the composer likes the darker one…" He shot Teru another questioning look.

"The darker one it is, then." Seika conceded, flipping a stray blue curl over his shoulder as he turned his attention back to his salad.

"Okay." Teru retrieved the two pieces of paper and slid them back into his bag. "I'll, um… I'll call him tonight, then."

Yuu nodded. "Thanks. And Teru, if you don't mind, could you get some more information about the CD release for me? A date would be nice. A lot of bands host events for new releases, and if we keep getting reservations like this…" He smiled, and Teru couldn't help but smile back.

"Alright, Teru," Yasu clapped his friend on the shoulder and handed him a glass of beer. "Now that our business is complete, we can get back to the real issue at hand – your date!"

"Wh – what?"

"Last night? Kiyomi? How did it go?"

Yuu and Seika rolled their eyes, but neither of them made any effort to change the subject. All eyes were on Teru, who in all honesty could barely believe that it had only been twenty-four hours, and not twenty-four days, since he had taken Kiyomi to the izakaya in Shinjuku. "I don't know." He shrugged, hoping that he looked and sounded as confident as he felt. "It was okay. Nothing spectacular, but I'd take her out again. We were both tired." It was a lame excuse and he knew it, but it seemed to have been effective. No one bothered to ask how far he had managed to go.

Fortunately for Teru, he wasn't the only one who had had a rough Saturday night. As soon as the food had disappeared, the four of them agreed unanimously that it was time to go home and rest. There were still two weeks remaining until their next show, they reasoned, and there was no need to rehash discussions that had already reached acceptable conclusions. "Alright guys." Yuu nodded politely to his band. "Sorry to run out early, but I think we all need the rest. Thursday night in Koenji, okay?"

The others nodded their agreement and they left the restaurant together, Yuu heading for the side street where he had parked his motorcycle and Yasu vowing to make the twenty-five minute walk to his apartment in Mitaka, "to shape up for the next show."

"So, just the two of us on the train, then," Seika remarked. "You're going home to… Nakano?"

"Nakano's the closest, but I can walk from Koenji," Teru explained. Koenji was one station closer and twenty yen cheaper, and besides, the extra five-minutes walk would be good exercise. "You?"

Seika laughed. "Kabukicho. It isn't cheap, but it's home."

"Yeah…" Teru had always felt a little awkward around Seika; though he liked the bassist a lot, his flamboyant personality was a little hard to deal with. They were probably around the same age, but Seika seemed a lot older, somehow. "Hey… um… Seika?"

"Yes?"

"Do you have to work tonight?"

Seika shook his head, and one of his blue curls fell across his face. He brushed it back with a sigh, and smiled. "No, I'm off."

"Ah." Teru's fingers were preoccupied, playing with the silver necklace that he had not, until that moment, remembered that he was wearing. It was one thing to be nervous around Rei, but Seika? They were bandmates, they'd been playing together for nearly two years now… "Um… actually… I was wondering if I could, um… ask you something?"

"What is it?" The question was entirely devoid of laughter, of teasing, of flirtatious overtones. He would give Seika that much at least: he knew when to give his strange sense of humor a rest.

Teru took a deep breath. "I don't… I don't think I can talk about it here. Can we go to a coffee shop, or something?" He pulled out his phone and glanced at the time. They had a little more than an hour before the last train. "It won't be long."

"Yeah." Seika nodded, though his eyes were full of questions. "Coffee sounds good. Name the place."

"Starbucks is the closest." Teru pointed to the coffee shop across the street. "But if it's too expensive, we can look for somewhere else?"

"It's fine." Seika shook his head. "Are you okay, Teru? You look pale."

Teru forced his face into a nervous smile. "I'm fine. Just need some caffeine, really."

They were luck enough to snag a corner table with armchairs instead of the usual bar stools, far enough from any of the other customers that Teru wouldn't have to be too embarrassed about what he was about to ask. "Look, Seika… I know we don't know each other very well. And this is kind of personal. So if you don't want to answer it –"

"Just ask me, Teru. You know I'm not shy." A bit of the old flirtatiousness crept back into his voice, and Teru relaxed a little. Gay or straight, Seika was still a friend. And if he couldn't trust his friends…

He cleared his throat, and let the question spill out in a single rush of breath. "How did you realize you were gay?"

Seika's eyes grew wide; it was obviously not the question that he had been expecting. "Wow. I didn't…"

Teru blushed. "It's okay, you don't have to answer. I'm sorry, I –"

"No, it's not that." Seika took a slow sip of his coffee. "I just wasn't expecting… that particular question. I don't know. I guess I've always liked boys. It wasn't a matter of realizing it so much as it was admitting it to myself."

"Oh… So, you never had a girlfriend?"

Seika shook his head. "I did. And I thought I loved her, then. But one day... It wasn't that anything changed, just that I realized that what I had felt for her just wasn't the same as what I felt for… well, him."

Teru nodded. "Okay. Thanks." He wasn't sure that any of that was very helpful. Actually, it hit a little too close to home to be much of a comfort.

"Teru?"

"Hm?"

Seika's smile was one that Teru had never seen before on that particular face: teasing, but kind – maybe even fatherly. "Is there a reason that you're asking me this?"

Teru could only stare at the table in response.

"Whatever you say to me stays here, okay? I just don't really think that you're that interested in _my_ personal life."

Teru took another sip of his coffee, but it didn't wash the guilty taste from his mouth. "Maybe," he answered at last. "I don't know."

"Okay." Seika nodded. "Not knowing is okay. You know that, right?"

"I kissed him." The words were out before he had a chance to think about it, but it felt good, like getting something off his chest.

Seika's smile managed to stretch from one cheek to the other without losing its kindness or understanding. "Good for you."

"What?"

"I might not be the right person to be learning life's little lessons from," the bassist acknowledged. "But whether you decide that you like something or not, you'll never have a chance to know if you don't try."

"Okay." Teru nodded. That was a way of thinking that he could deal with. "Thanks. That… that helps. Thanks."

"Go home, take a hot bath… relax. If it's meant to be… well, it'll be. And if not…" he shrugged. "I could always introduce you to someone from the club?"

That hot bath didn't actually sound like a bad idea. As soon as Teru got home, he set the hot water running and pulled his futon out of the closet, collapsing onto it and opening the mail folder on his phone. He was going to have to mail Rei, sooner or later. If there was nothing else there, he had least had an obligation to let him know about the cover art for the CD, and to ask Yuu's questions about the release date. He would just have to keep it professional, that was all.

He hit the send button before he had time to regret it and retreated to the bath, half-hoping that the reply would be waiting for him when he was done.

* * *

**Notes:**

Most of this is probably self-explanatory, but in case you were wondering:

Shoxx is a visual kei magazine that covers both big and not-so-big bands… it's not such a big deal just to have a picture or something in it, but an interview is special!

Denny's in Japan does serve beer, in case that little detail looked strange to anyone. You've basically got to go down to the McDonald's level before you find any restaurant in Japan that doesn't.

Kabukicho, where Seika lives, is a district of Shinjuku known for its bars, nightclubs, host and hostess clubs… and drag queens! It's actually not the gay district (that's ni-chome, about a ten minute walk away) but it's one of the most famous night spots in Tokyo, and not bad as far as live houses and music stores etc go either.

Finally, this chapter was updated to fix a continuity error on April 5, 2006. Apologies if anyone received an author alert or was otherwise led to believe I'd really updated!


	15. jisonshin

**Acknowledgements:  
**As always, much thanks to musiqueetamour for beta-ing! Thanks also to my readers and reviewers and all of Rei's groupies! Sorry for the delay, and I hope you enjoy!

**Chapter 15: jisonshin - pride -**

It had been three and a half days, and still there was nothing.

On Thursday morning, Teru was shaken from sleep by the ringing of his phone, his heart skipping a terrified beat for what seemed like the millionth time that week. It wasn't Rei. It couldn't be. He had been telling himself that since Monday night, but the fabricated conviction did little to calm the terrified anticipation that plagued him every time the phone so much as beeped, or the crushing disappointment that accompanied every message from his co-workers, his band-mates, and even Kiyomi.

This morning was no exception. Teru rolled onto his stomach and groped around for the phone in the mess of CDs, beer cans, and magazines that he had allowed to clutter his floor over the past few days. Under any other circumstances, he would have just let it ring; it was only eight o'clock, according to the faded glow of his digital alarm clock, and he didn't have to be at work until noon. But sleep could wait; he needed to know.

He pulled the phone from its charger and pressed a button to illuminate the screen. _One new message. _He opened it, and his heart sank. It was, if anything, worse than the junk mail he had been half-expecting at this time of the morning. The message was from Yuu, marked priority, and with the subject line: "Tonight's Rehearsal."

"Damn." Teru rolled onto his back and closed his eyes. _Rehearsal_. It was the last thing that he wanted to do. How was he supposed to tell the guys that he hadn't managed to produce any of the information they had asked for, when he was supposed to be good friends with its source? _Yeah, like that's not going to be obvious_. Yasu was already suspicious of Rei, and it wasn't going to take a stroke of genius for Seika to make the connection between the half-regretted kiss and the suddenly strained relationship with the masked composer.

He took a deep breath and opened his eyes. It might help to read the message, at least. Maybe rehearsal had been cancelled? Teru smiled grimly to himself. He could always hope.

"Just a reminder," he read, and his smile faded. "Rehearsal tonight in Koenji. I could only get the studio for two hours: 7-9. Meeting afterward if needed. Potential drummer can't make it tonight, but next week is fine. Teru – do you have the music for the new song? Mail me. – Yuu."

Teru hit the reply button automatically, but his mind was a blank. He couldn't very well say no, but if he promised to have it by tonight, there was a pretty good chance that his promise would have to be broken. "Hey, Yuu…" he began to type, but deleted it, unsure of what should come next. "Look, about tonight…" But that didn't seem right either.

_Fuck you, Rei. _He twisted a bit of blanket angrily in his hand. Alright, so they'd gotten drunk, they'd make a mistake. _And any other half-decent human being would have forgotten about it by now._ Teru was letting his mind rot, thinking about it. He hadn't touched his music in days, had hardly eaten. His mails to Kiyomi were empty and meaningless, and he hadn't even bothered to mail Yasu at all.

_I have to know._

He was surprised at the ease and simplicity with which the thought had sprung to mind; it had been perhaps the first coherent thought that he had had in days. But it was true. Teru was not an overly patient person; he didn't like waiting for replies, wanted to resolve conflicts immediately instead of waiting for things to calm down. But he was usually too shy to actually act on those feelings, especially when it came to the few real girlfriends he had had. He waited, not because he wanted to, but because he was too afraid of his partner's reaction to do anything too rash.

_But Rei's not my girlfriend – or boyfriend for that matter. And I'm not the only one waiting for an answer._

He hit the delete button again, and this time it was not the message body that he deleted, but the address.

"Rei," he began, "We have rehearsal tonight. I get off at 4 this afternoon, and I could come by and get that sheet music if it's okay with you. Let me know. Teru."

He reread it five or six times, trying to convince himself that it was okay, that it didn't sound too forward, or angry, or impatient. Rei hadn't known about the rehearsal tonight, after all, and there was always a chance that the original mail hadn't gone through. _Not much of a chance_, he reminded himself firmly as he rolled over to catch an extra hour or two of sleep before work – but a chance, all the same.

* * *

Teru refused to allow himself to look at his phone all day. He set it on vibrate and made sure it was well buried in the depths of his bag, refusing to set foot in the back room even once during his four-hour shift. He knew that a smoking break would turn into a watching-the-phone break, and so he stubbornly refused to take one, letting his body's cries for nicotine go as unanswered as his mind's cries for resolution. It was only four hours, after all… and if he couldn't wait four hours, then he hadn't really earned the cigarette _or_ the mail.

He wasn't sure whether it was a good thing or a bad thing that, when his shift finally ended, it was the phone that he reached for first. But the little light next to the antenna, which should have been blinking yellow-green if anyone had tried to mail or call him, was ominously dark. He opened the mail folder anyway, but Yuu's message was still on top, and there was nothing from Rei at all.

The cigarette came next, but the pack had been a cheap substitute for his favorite brand to begin with, and in the wake of his disappointment it left a strange, stale taste in his mouth that was scarcely an improvement over having nothing there at all. He stubbed it out before he really had too, and threw the half-empty pack back into his bag. _Oh, well._ He tried to force a smile onto his face. _Look on the bright side, at least you've got some free time before – _

The line of thought was interrupted as his phone began to vibrate wildly on the table.

Teru jumped for it, hurrying to press the buttons as if he knew that the person on the other end would hang up after the first ring. _It might not be Rei_, he told himself. _It's probably Yuu, it's probably…_

"Hello?"

There was a long silence, but the connection was alive. He could hear someone breathing, waiting…

"Hello?"

He could hear a deep, trembling breath on the other end of the phone… and then the voice. It was cold and distant, as though it had been wounded, but it was there. "Come."

And then the silence was real.

Teru stared at the phone for what might have been a minute or an hour, unwilling or unable to believe that the call had really happened. Rei was willing to forgive him, maybe. Or maybe he had just decided that his music was worth a little more than his pride today. Whatever the reason, he had called. And now Teru had no choice but to return to Meguro and to face what he had been… dreading? Longing for? Even now, he wasn't sure which.

He shrugged out of his work uniform slowly and deliberately, watching each piece as it crumbled to the floor before getting dressed. His own clothes were on the flashy side – a loose-fitting pair of pants with one black leg and one red, adorned on either side with silver buckles and meaningless straps, and a black tank-top with silver studs around the neck and arm holes. His hair was pulled back, and would have to remain that way since he didn't exactly keep styling products in the back room at work, and 7-11 would hardly have let him show up in full makeup… but he had dressed for Rei as much as was possible. Not that he was entirely sure that that was something to be proud of…

"I'm heading out!" he called to his shift manager as he made his way to the door. "See you tomorrow!"

The shift manager laughed. "I'm off tomorrow. But I'll see you this weekend. Have fun on your date!" She winked, and Teru blushed. Did it really look like he had dressed for a date?

"Ahhh… yeah, I will," he stammered, not bothering to correct her. "This weekend, then. Bye!"

The train was unusually quiet for this time of day; it was still too early for summer vacation, but Teru silently thanked whatever unknown force had kept the usual crowd of elementary school and junior high school students out of this particular carriage. He found himself mentally rehearsing a dozen possible things to say. Of course, there was a good chance that Rei would simply give him the music and tell him to get lost. And he supposed that he couldn't really allow himself to be too disappointed if that was the case… but it didn't hurt to have a few apologies and explanations ready, just in case.

"Next stop, Shinjuku. The doors on the left side will open. Please change here for the Yamanote Line, the Saikyo Line, the Shonan-Shinjuku Line…" The announcement droned on, listing all of the JR, subway, and private train lines that connected at the massive hub that was Shinjuku Station. Teru stood up and made his way to the left-hand door. He had never had to commute to Shinjuku for work or for rehearsal, but this transfer was beginning to feel a little like a commute, like something he had done so often that he could have managed it in his sleep.

The Yamanote Line train was just pulling away from the platform as he reached the top of the stairs, and he took the three minute interval between trains to send a message to Rei, telling him that he was in Shinjuku and would be on the next available train. He didn't get a reply, and he didn't expect one. But if Rei didn't want to be seen without the mask and wig, it would at least be polite to give him some idea of when to expect company.

The walk from Meguro, too, was beginning to feel almost routine, though it was a little strange to feel that way about another person's home. Teru had never been one to invite his own friends over, even when he'd still been living with his parents, and he didn't feel much more comfortable about the idea of going over to a friend's house himself. He'd had one girlfriend, for a few months when he'd first came to Tokyo, who'd wanted to have sleepovers nearly every weekend. Looking back, Teru realized that those sleepovers were a big part of the reason he had lost interest in her to begin with – it had simply been too much, too soon.

So why was Rei different? He wasn't a girl, for one – but Teru wouldn't have felt any more comfortable going to Yasu's house on such a regular basis. Was it because he really _couldn't_ leave? But that wasn't true either – hadn't he seen Teru play at Rock Maykan? Choosing to be an invalid wasn't the same as really _being_ one, was it?

But that was crossing into uncomfortable territory, too. Teru shook his head; he was here to get the sheet music and the answers to a few impersonal questions. If that went well, then maybe he would be able to get in an apology or two – and that was it. Life would simply be a lot easier if he started the process of backing away.

He rang the doorbell, and waited.

Rei came to the door a minute or two later, fully clothed in his usual long skirt and kimono-sleeved jacket, though he wore no makeup as before. The mask was in place as always, and although he had returned to the long blue wig, it was tangled and knotted in places, as though he had fallen asleep with it on. He surveyed Teru slowly, taking in his feet first and sliding his gaze upwards until at last their eyes locked for a precious moment. Teru looked away.

"You came." Rei's voice was cold and indifferent.

"Yes." Teru cleared his throat. "I came. May I – may I come in?"

"I suppose." He stepped away from the door, allowing Teru to enter the apartment behind him. "We did not part on good terms… last time. I'm sorry."

"No… um… I mean, _I'm_ sorry." _Rei_ was apologizing to _him_? This was not one of the scenarios that Teru had rehearsed in his head. "It was… inappropriate."

"It was." Rei did not argue as he made his painstaking way to the music room. "But it is in the past now. Forget about it, Teru."

Teru nodded. He didn't want to forget about it, not really, and he couldn't in any case. But he could ignore it, and he could refrain from talking about it, and that would be just as good as forgetting. "Do you have the music?" He changed the subject.

"Yes." Rei nodded in the direction of the sofa, though he made no move to sit down himself. "It is on the table. Have a seat, make sure that everything you need is there."

"Okay." Teru sat down, hesitantly. The music seemed to be in order: four copies, in a plastic folder, regular musical notation as well as guitar and bass tab. They guys would be happy with it. He breathed a sigh of relief as he slid the folder into his bag and stood up to leave. "This is great, Rei. Thank you. I mean it. I can't… I can't ever repay you for this, but if there's anything at all – "

"Sit down."

"What?" Teru blinked.

"You asked if there was anything you could do. And I am answering you." Rei's voice was as cold as ever, but the shadow of a smile began to play at the corner of his mouth. "You can sit down."

Teru shook his head. "I can't," he explained. "I have rehearsal tonight. I'm barely going to be on time as it is. Next time –"

"Call your friends. Tell them you're sick, tell them the trains have stopped… I don't care. I'll call and tell them you've lost your voice, if you'd like. But if we are going to have a relationship – professional or otherwise – there are things that we need to talk about. And I want to do it tonight."

Teru sat down, stunned. This had not worked its way into any of his imagined scenarios. "I… I guess I could call them…" His mouth had suddenly gone dry, and the words came out as little more than whispers.

"Thank you." Some of the ice seemed to have melted from Rei's words, as well. "Now… I suppose… the real question is…" He took a deep breath and hesitated before continuing, leaning on the arm of the computer chair as though suddenly finding it difficult to stand. "Where do you want to go for dinner?"

"Wh – what?" Teru's fingers were halfway through the list of names in his phone, on their way to the Y's. He hadn't really been paying attention, but his ears perked up at the last. "What did you say?"

Rei released the chair and stood up as straight as he could. "I am not much of a cook," he admitted. "But I do believe that most conversations go better when there is good food and drink involved. I asked where you would like to go."

"I – I don't know…" The conversation had strayed so far from any of the possibilities that Teru had dared to imagine that he was tempted to pinch himself, to slap himself in the face, just to prove that he wasn't dreaming. "I don't know this area… and I don't know what you like… and…"

Rei nodded. "Call your friends, and think about it. It may… take me awhile… to get ready."

"Okay." Teru returned his attention to the phone and brought up Yuu's cell number. "Um… take your time?"

Yuu picked up in the middle of the second ring. "Teru! I was starting to worry about you. You got the music?"

"Um… yeah, I did." Teru wasn't exactly the world's best liar, and he was immensely grateful for the fact that Yuu couldn't see him over the phone lines. He was sweating, though the apartment was relatively cool, and his face must have been painted a hundred shades of crimson. "But… look, I know it's bad timing, but… I don't think I'm going to be able to make it tonight. I'm burning up." That, at least, was not a lie. "Fever, headache… I should be fine for Sunday," he explained quickly. "But I think I need to get some rest tonight."

"Okay… sure." Yuu's voice was full of concern, and rather than being relieved at the fact that his lies had been believed, Teru began to feel the headache, at least, become reality. "Only two hours tonight, anyway. And you've been under a lot of stress lately, taking over from Bara and all…" Another stab of guilt. "Get some rest, let me know when you're feeling better, okay?"

"Okay."

"Take care, Teru."

"Yeah, I will." He tried to make his throat sound a little scratchy. "See you later."

When Rei returned nearly thirty minutes later, his face was made up the way it had been when Teru had first met him, and he had replaced the rumpled blue wig for a slightly shorter, perfectly straight purple one. "I like your hair," Teru admitted shyly, unsure of whether or not the compliment would be appreciated. He didn't know, after all, if the wigs were a fashion choice or, like the mask, a genuine disguise.

Rei's shoulders stiffened, and for a moment something like anger, or maybe sadness, clouded his eyes. But when he spoke, it was with a lighthearted tone, and he thanked Teru kindly for the compliment. "I prefer the blue, myself," he admitted with a forced smile. "But it does take… a bit of time, to style."

Teru had never worn a wig himself, but Yasu had tried a couple during high school, when they hadn't been allowed to have extreme hairstyles of their own. The thing had always been a mess, perpetually tangled and fake-looking. Rei's were of considerably better quality, he was sure, but even so, he imagined that they required quite a bit of upkeep. He smiled with what he hoped would be interpreted as innocent sympathy.

"Shall we go, then?" Rei refused to meet Teru's eyes as he retrieved his cane from where it has been propped against the wall. "Have you decided where you would like to eat?"

"Ahhh…" Teru did his best to feign the disinterest that Rei so obviously desired. "I don't know Meguro very well. If we go to Shibuya or somewhere…"

"Fine. Shibuya it is." Rei began to make his way to the door.

Teru cleared his throat. "Um… Rei?" He was fairly sure that what he had to say next wouldn't be taken well, but for Rei attempt the walk to Meguro Station – a good ten-minute hike even on two good legs – didn't seem like it would be an ideal way to start a pleasant evening out. "Don't you think… I mean… shouldn't we call a taxi, or something?"

Rei laughed, but there was no humor whatsoever in the sound. "Why would we want to do that?" he asked in a tone of false nonchalance. "No one takes a taxi from Meguro to Shibuya – the trains are much cheaper." And that was the end of _that_ suggestion.

It took them a good thirty minutes to make the journey, and though Rei did not complain once, he was a little out of breath by the time they reached the station, and gratefully accepted the seat offered to him by a kindly middle-aged lady on the train. They made little conversation; Rei hardly seemed up to it, and Teru, for his part, could think of nothing terribly intelligent to say.

When the train arrived at Shibuya Station, the two of them were swallowed alive by a crowd of high-school girls in uniform skirts and blazers; it required all of their attention simply to stay together in the midst of the navy mob that seemed to intent on its gossip to notice the fact that Rei was having trouble even staying on his feet. _Of course_, Teru remarked sarcastically to himself, _that's probably exactly what he wants…_

"Rei!" Teru shouted over the crowd. The eyes that turned to meet his were trying hard not to appear overwhelmed, and Teru could not help but smile warmly in response. "I don't think we want to deal with Hachiko tonight!" Hachiko, the large open square on the west side of the station, tended to be if anything more crowded than Alta in Shinjuku, an easily understood rendezvous point that, at this time of night, would have been difficult even for Teru to navigate alone. "Let's head to the other side of the station, by the Tokyu Line? There are a few izakayas over there, too."

Rei nodded his agreement, and they boarded an escalator bound for the ground floor. The east side of the station was not exactly deserted, but compared to Hachiko, it might as well have been a ghost town. "I don't really know any of these places," Teru apologized. "But most of them have the menu posted outside. If you know what kind of food you're in the mood for…."

But Rei had already stopped in front of one of the taller buildings and was gazing up at the signs for each story as if searching for something that he already knew was there. "Here," he said, his voice suddenly powerful and decisive. "The ninth floor. It's been ages…"

"The ninth floor?" Teru's eyes wandered incredulously up the side of the building, wondering if Rei's stubborn pride was going to assert itself on those stairs as well. The laughter that came in response, however, was genuine and kind.

"Don't be silly, Teru." Behind the mask, deep brown eyes sparkled with what may have been honest mirth. "No one takes the stairs to the ninth floor. The elevator is much faster."

* * *

**Notes**

I don't think anything needs explaining this time? Are things going to start "getting good"? Or will it all fall apart? Mwa ha ha! You'll have to wait for the next update!


	16. kokuhaku

**Acknowledgements:** Thanks to Musique et Amour for being a wonderful beta, and thanks to all of my readers and reviewers for just plain being wonderful! Sorry to keep you waiting on this one… this chapter and the last were actually supposed to be together as one chapter. But I decided at the last minute to split it… sorry!

* * *

**Chapter 16: kokuhaku -confessions-**

To Teru's surprise, the izakaya was a bright and lively one; voices rang out in laughter from the surrounding tables, and the atmospheric music was refreshingly modern. The young host did a double take when he saw the two men with pink and purple hair standing in the doorway, but he recovered quickly enough and escorted them to a central table, only a few meters away from the bar.

"It's a good table," Rei said with a smile as he slid into the booth with a minimal awkward effort that Teru could see plainly, but which the strangers around them probably could not.

"Good?" Teru was surprised; the girls with whom he usually visited places like this tended to be interested in being as far away from the bar and the kitchen as possible, in the most secluded corner that the izakaya had to offer.

"Of course." Rei retrieved the menu from its stand and turned to the last page, where the drinks were listed. "This is where all the waiters and waitresses will be when they don't have anything better to do. No waiting for our orders," he explained.

Teru had never thought of it like that before, but Rei's explanation made sense. "So… you don't mind, then? Being in the middle of all these people?" He noticed that Rei had carefully seated himself with the wall to his right, but even so, it was unrealistic to hope that no one would notice the conspicuous silver mask.

He was answered with a lopsided shrug. "It's silly, I know… but I don't mind. Being stared at, that is. I don't mind if people stare at my hair, or my makeup…"

Teru nodded, though he didn't fully understand.

"It's something that I can control. I don't mind… being stared at… for something that I choose."

"Ahhh… okay." That made a little bit of sense, but it also hit dangerously close to the long list of subjects that Teru had promised himself not to bring up tonight. He turned his attention to the menu. "So… what do you want to eat?"

The waiter came and went with their drink orders, and returned shortly with two glasses of shochu – they had decided to avoid whiskey this time – and tiny dishes of some sort of vegetable appetizer.

Rei lifted his glass and smiled across the table at Teru. "Why don't we try our toast again?" he suggested. "To music, and to you."

Teru blushed, but allowed his glass to meet Rei's over the table. At least music had come first this time. He took a sip, but only a small one, before replacing his glass on the table and turning his attention to the food. There was a fine line between drinking and getting drunk, and he was determined not to cross it this time.

He pulled his wooden chopsticks from their paper sleeve and broke them neatly in half. Wasn't it supposed to be good luck or something to get a pair that broke evenly down the middle? Teru smiled to himself and looked up at Rei. "Do you think…" he began shyly.

But the smile faded in an instant when he saw the expression on Rei's face. The eyebrow that he could see was slightly furrowed in concentration, the lips set in a thin line of what might have been determination, or anger… or a concentrated attempt to conceal humiliation. He seemed to be fighting a silent war with his own chopsticks, attempting to force them apart with one finger while using the other four for leverage. Teru forced his attention back to his food, feeling ashamed in a way that seemed disturbingly akin to the time his twelve-year-old self had walked in on his elderly grandmother in the bathroom. He had caught Rei in a moment of weakness, and though he knew that it would be better for both of them if he simply ignored the fact, pretended that it had never happened... the weakness itself was strangely attractive, and the wandering of his eyes seemed, at the moment, to be entirely out of his control.

"Can I – can I ask you a question?"

Silence followed, though Teru could not be sure whether Rei was ignoring him, or whether the effort of separating his chopsticks had honestly consumed all of his attention. He was beginning to suspect the former when the chopsticks popped apart with a wooden crack, one of them flying across the table to rest against a tiny bottle of soy sauce. "As telling you no will do no good," he intoned at last, "please, go ahead."

"Were you – were you left-handed? I mean… before…."

Rei retrieved the missing chopstick and raised a bit of spinach to his lips. "No," he answered brusquely, before abandoning the attempted conversation entirely in favor of his vegetables. Chastened, Teru looked away, intent on pretending that a particular slice of boiled carrot was the most interesting thing he had seen all day.

As the food began to arrive, however, the tension around the table seemed to fall until Teru felt that it was safe to interrupt the silence once more. "So…" he began hesitantly, unsure of anything except that the fact that the quiet had become unbearable. "Ahh… what kind of music do you like?" It was a stupid question, but at least there was no conceivable way for it to be construed as an insult.

Rei laughed, but the laugh was not an unkind one. "Ah, yes… pleasant first-date conversation. Forgive me, Teru… it has been quite awhile since I have… allowed myself to meet anyone new." He raised his glass to his lips and drained the little bit that remained. "I seem to have forgotten how to have an innocent conversation. And as for music…" He retrieved the drink menu from the edge of the table and began to scan it as he spoke. "I would much rather show you than tell you. Remind me to show you my CD collection… next time?"

Teru was unsure if he had heard or imagined the question. It didn't really matter, though; his answer was the same either way. "Sure." He nodded. "Next time."

"And you? Who inspires you, Teru?"

For the next hour or so, the conversation managed to progress, as Rei had phrased it, much like that on a typical first date. Teru explained his high school fascination with X Japan, the beginnings of his friendship with Yasu and the band they joined together, and his eventual move to Tokyo. Rei asked him how he liked the city, and the flow of conversation shifted to live houses, shopping, restaurants…. Though Rei never said so much directly, Teru got the distinct impression that he, too, was not a Tokyo native, and had once gone through the same process of discovering the city one piece at a time. By the time the plates were clean, and they were promising that the next drink would be their last, Teru felt almost as though he were enjoying a night out with an old friend.

"We seem to have a lot in common, don't we, Teru?" Rei smiled, but the expression on his face did not quite match the warmth in his voice. "But I digress. There was a reason that I brought you out tonight. Two reasons, actually, but as I have already apologized…" He took a deep breath, as though steeling himself for something distinctly unpleasant. "Let us move along to the second.

"I have been alone," he explained, "for a long time. When I heard you singing in the dressing room that night, I…" He lowered his eyes to the table. "I wanted your voice. I knew that you could sing my songs, and I thought… for the sake of my music… that I could risk… showing you…" He shook his head, and continued. "But my plan failed, Teru. I want you to understand that."

The words ripped an angry line of shame through Teru's heart. So this was all about the music? That was the one thing that had been going right lately…. "I don't – I don't understand," he stammered. "You… don't want to work with me anymore?"

"No. Listen." Rei took another sip of his drink, and as he returned the glass to the table his hand trembled and nearly slipped. "My plan failed, because you were… too good. I'm not trying to fire you, Teru." He forced a laugh, though if the comment had been intended as a joke, it wasn't a very good one. "I'm trying to… tell you…." He took another sip, and when he spoke again his voice was a whisper. "My plan failed because… I fell in love with you."

The world stopped spinning; the voices of the other customers were silenced and Teru was alone in a world that suddenly seemed both very dark and exceedingly bright, his only companion the strange and incomprehensible man in the silver mask. His words were delectable poison, a terrible temptation that Teru both wanted and feared. "Wh – what do you mean?"

Rei's eyes clouded over with a fatalistic resignation, and he seemed in that moment to shrink, to collapse, to fade away. "I am sorry, Teru. I shouldn't have…"

"No." Teru hesitated for only a moment before speaking. He couldn't let this stop there.

He could feel those deep brown eyes searching his face, his body… looking for what? "It is early. You can still make it home. I'll – I'll walk you to the station." A hint of a question crept into Rei's voice – or perhaps it was nothing more than a tremor of despair.

Teru heard his own voice, hollow and distant as though it came from somewhere outside his body. "No. Please. I – I don't want to go. Not yet." Rei's eyes dared him to say the wrong thing, but all concept of right or wrong or sane had completely abandoned him. His mouth was moving without permission from his mind, taking orders only from the strange burning sensation that had spread from his heart to the pit of his stomach and continued to make its way down. "I – I mean… I guess… that I, um… that maybe I… like you too?" The words were awkward and stiff, but they were out of his system at last, and a cold panic rushed in to take their place. "Don't leave!" he pleaded, and the words this time were his own.

"So," Rei breathed after a long moment, his eyes softening and growing suddenly shy. "What do we do now?"

"I don't know." Teru picked up his glass again, though he had no intention of drinking from it. His hands needed something to do, and the cool, wet glass was refreshingly _real_… "I've never said anything… like that… to a man, before."

"And I haven't said anything… like that… at all, for years." Rei smiled, but it was a sad, almost sarcastic smile that failed entirely to reach his eyes.

"Rei…" the name spilled effortlessly from Teru's lips as though it had been waiting all night to be said. "I'm so sorry. You don't deserve… this. Any of this."

"I don't deserve you."

"No!" Teru shook his head. "That isn't what I meant. I –"

Rei raised his hand to stop the awkward flow of apologies. "I know. I know you didn't mean it, but I did. You don't know me, Teru."

"I want to know you!"

"Teru…" Rei let his hand fall to the table, and his eyes followed. His breathing was slow and deliberate, as though he were trying to control some overwhelming emotion. Suddenly he was very small and weak beneath the layers of black that hid him from the world. "Look at me."

Teru had been looking at nothing else for what seemed like the past eternity.

"Look at me, and tell me what you see."

"I – I see a man. A composer. A musician." That much was easy, but Rei waited, his silence asking for more. "I see… a survivor?" The question slipped into his voice as his confidence in his choice of words faltered. "Someone who has been hurt… but who is still himself, or wants to be. I see someone who cares for me, who took a chance on my music, my voice. I see someone… who shouldn't be alone." Words failed him then, and there was nothing to do but wait for the verdict.

Rei nodded, slowly and thoughtfully. "Shouldn't be alone…" Teru wondered if the breath of a statement had been intended to reach his ears, and was struggling to come up with something to say or do in response, when Rei raised his head abruptly, tossing a torrent of purple hair over his shoulder as he did so. His lips were set in a determined line, and his eyes blazed with a fire like liquid diamonds. "Fine." A note of bitter amusement crept into his voice. "Let's go."

"Go where?"

Rei rose from the table, and with the help of his cane drew himself up to his full height. He did not answer the question, but retrieved the bill from the edge of the table and, smiling a secretive, thin-lipped smile, turned toward the register and the door.

"W – wait!" Teru found himself fumbling for his wallet, a strange thread of reality in the middle of what had accelerated into an endless insane dream. "I only have big bills. Can we – "

"No." Rei's voice tried to be cold, but a note of amusement colored it a subtle shade of satisfaction. "We cannot. Tell me something, Teru?" He paused for a moment, but did not look back. "What is the use of a generous insurance settlement, if one cannot use it to take… someone special… to dinner?"

Teru had no answer for that. "I – I don't… I mean…"

Rei looked over his shoulder this time, and smiled. "The correct answer," he lectured gently, "is 'thank you'."

Teru had never been treated to dinner before. He had not, for that matter, ever gotten to the point with a girl where he felt comfortable asking her to go Dutch. But he knew perfectly well from years on the other end of the bargain that it would not be polite to look at the bill or at the register to see exactly how much of a dinner he was being treated to. Instead, he stood by the elevator, trying not to stare out of the corner of his eye as Rei fumbled awkwardly to retrieve a handful of bills from a black leather wallet, and wondering exactly what he had gotten himself into.

His own confession – if it could even be considered such – had not been planned, and yet rather than taking him by surprise, it seemed to explain a lot of the thoughts that had been spinning aimlessly through his mind, refusing to put themselves into words. _I like him._ He tested the words out in his mind. _I'm attracted to him._ It was strange, but not quite wrong. _I love him._ Teru shook his head. _No, not yet. How can I love someone I barely know?_

"T – Teru?"

"Yes?"

"Let's go?"

It was his last chance to say no, his last chance to run breathlessly and gracelessly back across a threshold he had crossed irrevocably hours before. But there was only one answer to Rei's fatalistic plea, and only one path from the elevator door to the other side of the station, where a million stupid mistakes and a million life-changing decisions had been made before tonight. The river of time had stopped for none of the young lovers who had made their way up the hill to the street lined with love hotels in the past – they were only fallen leaves, caught in the flow. Teru could not have swam against the current if he had tried.

"Let's go," he echoed, and the soft disbelief in Rei's eyes gave him the courage to try a bit of kindness again. "Let me call a taxi?" he ventured. "I know that we don't need it… but let's indulge."

Rei narrowed his lips into a hard line, though his eyes struggled to be patient. "I – " he began, then seemed to reconsider what he was about to say. He smiled, but it was the smile of a lonely man remembering people, places… _days_ that were dead and gone. "You spent a year of your life learning how to walk," he mused. "A year of your life… and I spent two. I'm sorry, Teru, but that is not an ability that I am willing to take for granted. Do you understand?"

"No." Teru's heart sank. He didn't understand, and maybe he never would. "I don't understand… but I'll walk with you. Is that enough?"

Rei smiled. "Yes." His tone apologized for the lecture, though Teru knew that his words never would. "For tonight, I think it is."

* * *

**Notes:** I don't think there's a lot of explanation needed here, most unfamiliar words are making second and third appearances by now! As far as the next chapter goes… it is about halfway written, but I have RL obligations next week that will keep be off the computer… so please be patient with me, I think it will be worth the wait! 


	17. rakuen

**Acknowledgements:**

As always, thanks to Musique et Amour for betaing! A good beta is a rare thing, and a wonderful one!

Bits… okay, MOST of this chapter was inspired and/or helped into being by: Bee, Jennyfair, Mongie, Mithril, and others from PPN. You guys are my smut thesaurus – thank you so much!

* * *

**Chapter 17: rakuen - paradise -**

They made their way up the hill in silence, despite the aimless strains of music pouring from the windows of passing cars and the sleepy, drunken chatter of the college students and office workers who flooded down the hill in the opposite direction, toward the station and eventually toward home. It was a Thursday night, after all; tomorrow meant work, or school, or whatever commitments made an individual life a stressful one, and for most, tonight's fleeting relaxation was over. Teru, however, felt as though he was able to relax for the first time in weeks. He said nothing at all, and Rei answered his silence with the same. But for the first time since they had met each other, the silence managed to be neither forced nor awkward, but strangely peaceful. They traipsed up the hill at a snail's pace, hearing and seeing nothing at all, but simply _feeling_ each another and – though Teru could scarcely believe it – relishing one another's presence.

What had felt like facing his fears now began to seem like getting something that he had always wanted – it was terrifying, but the adrenaline that was pounding through his system seemed to come from a different place entirely. It was almost stage fright; as terrible as the nerves before a show might be, they were never enough to keep him from walking up those stairs and taking his place beneath the lights.

"This one." Rei's breathing had been growing progressively heavier since they had left the restaurant, though Teru could not have been certain whether it was the result of nerves or of simple physical exertion, and when they stopped at last, beneath a white-and-blue blaze of neon script that would have been elegant in any other medium, his voice was little more than a throaty gasp.

"Rakuen," Teru read aloud. _Paradise_. Not the most original name for a love hotel, but it would do. The building was dark, covered in a façade of mock stone that, had it not been for the neon scroll of a name and the brightly-lit table of room rates beside the door, may have given the place the look of some sort of castle.

Two sets of automatic doors, tinted nearly black for the sake of privacy, opened before them with a breathy purr. The lobby, as well, was decorated in shades of black, save only a lighted panel with photographs of the available rooms. Teru swallowed a lump of some uncomfortable emotion that he hadn't been aware of until that moment. These pictures made it real, and though he knew that he would step beneath these lights as readily though they were the spotlight at the Budokan, it didn't make the moment of final commitment any easier.

Rei showed no sign of emotion whatsoever; his face wore two masks now, the second of mock indifference, and he held himself with the same elegance that Teru had seen him struggling with in the studio and even in Shibuya station. "Good," he whispered, allowing his cane to fall against the lighted wall as a single elegant finger traced a path over the shining numbers at the top of the board, a ridiculous figure that Teru could not have imagined paying for any act which both parties undertook willingly. "The deluxe suite."

Teru longed to offer to help him with his wallet, but he bit his tongue and allowed Rei to pay the exorbitant fee on his own. The reception here was unmanned, of course – no fully-staffed hotel would have allowed two men to enter together – and a few bills and the push of a button were all that was needed. A small key fell into a dark cubbyhole, not unlike that on a typical vending machine, and Teru allowed himself to be the one to bend down and take it.

"Upstairs." Rei's voice was cold and aloof, and Teru wondered for a moment if he had done something wrong. But the meter or so of air between them crackled with an electricity that managed to be completely devoid of anger or offense. _He's nervous too_. The thought was strangely comforting.

The elevator was as starkly elegant as the lobby, the walls paneled in what Teru's awed mind could only think to refer to as black mirrors. Rei pushed the button that would take them to the fifth floor, and the doors closed effortlessly, sweeping the two of them into what felt like the depths of the castle, though Teru knew very well that they were going up.

The fifth floor hallway was long and straight, done in the same smooth planes of black and blue. One side of the hallway looked much like the other hotels of this sort that Teru had been to in the past: four plain doors set into the wall, each one marked with a lighted plaque bearing the room number and availability. On an unremarkable Thursday in the middle of summer, only one of the four blazed with the red that meant "occupied."

The other side of the hallway, however, belonged to a world that Teru had never dared to set foot in before. The entire length of the wall was interrupted only by a single door, of the same size and shape as the others, but made somehow more impressive by its solitude. The plaque beside the door shone with a vivid turquoise light that was extinguished as Teru's trembling hands turned the key in the lock, replaced immediately by a red that could have been interpreted as either passionate or ominous. The door swung open easily, and Teru held it open with his foot, allowing Rei to enter the room ahead of him, but carefully avoiding eye contact as he did so.

Rei sat down carefully on the lip of the entranceway to remove his shoes, needlessly complicated boots that stretched nearly up to his knees, fastening in four or five separate places with enormous straps and buckles.　　Not for the first time since they had met, Teru wondered why? – most shoes with real buckles were imported anyway, and twice as expensive. There were plenty of similar styles that would have been easier to get on and off, and no one would have noticed the difference under the layers of skirts and cloaks and long jackets that Rei habitually wore. But he had to admit that the process was admirable, as well. Rei and those buckles seemed to have a mutual understanding, an established routine that eventually led to the removal of both boots and their careful placement against the wall.

Teru's own boots were of a simpler domestic make, mock leather with elastic bits on the side that allowed them to be slipped off in less than a minute. By the time he had succeeded in arranging them the cupboard, a short, narrow box that had been intended for shoes of about half the size, Rei was still in the process of struggling to his feet. Teru said nothing – there was nothing to be said – but offered his hand, and was only a little bit shocked when Rei took it and allowed himself to be helped into the room.

They certainly didn't call this place the deluxe suite for nothing. The main room was something close to four times as big as Teru's entire apartment, covered in pink iridescent wallpaper and draped with filmy silver curtains with no windows behind them. It was furnished with no less than three sofas of varying lengths, also in silver and pink and placed at what Teru supposed were strategic points around the room. A television equipped with a Playstation, a karaoke set, and a nice collection of pornographic videos stood watch at the far end of the room, flanked by a mini-bar and a small counter upon which a coffee maker, a hot water pot, and a collection of instant hot beverages were arranged. Soft, soothing music, carefully synthesized with only the slightest hint of a melody floated in the fragrant air, and below a tasteful panel of controls that could be used to raise or lower the music or the lights, or eliminate them all together, there was a bed.

"Sit." Rei gestured toward the bed, a massive pink affair that must have been at least a king size, if not some larger custom model.

Teru hesitated. Sure, he had come here to… do what? To face his feelings, maybe even to explore them, to see if they were real. But the bed seemed so… final. "I – I don't…" His tongue tripped over the words.

Rei smiled gently and shook his head. "Just sit down, Teru. You don't have to do anything… that you don't want to."

"Okay." Teru took a deep breath. He shouldn't be this nervous. He had come here of his own free will, and he had no doubt that, if he had said no, Rei would not – _could_ not – have forced him. Physically, he had the advantage… but then again, it wasn't exactly physical damage that was worrying him.

The bed was soft and welcoming; had it not been for the uncontrollable nerves that kept his back straight as a board and his fingers tensely fidgeting in his lap, Teru might have simply been able to lie down, melt into the soft down comforter, and stay buried there for a week. As it was, however, he was able to do nothing but sit there, watching, as Rei unbuttoned his long cloak and the jacket that lay beneath and draped them over the arm of the nearest of the three sofas. His cane fell to the floor and lay there disregarded as he settled onto the sofa, his body as rigid and as awkward as Teru's as the two men stared at each other across a stretch of room that seemed much bigger than it really was.

"Can I – " Rei began hesitantly, then repeated himself with some newfound force: "Can I see you?"

Teru blinked. The question had been unexpected, but… "See me?"

"I… I mean… you don't have to, if it makes you uncomfortable."

Recognition dawned, and Teru found himself shaking his head frantically, desperate to erase any misunderstanding. "No, it's not that. I mean…" His eyes fell to the floor; his face was on fire. "Come… and sit with me?"

The bed yielded beneath him as Rei seated himself on the far end. Neither of them spoke. Teru half wanted to touch the other man, to hold his hand or to "accidentally" brush his fingers against his thigh. He would have done so in an instant with a girl, but…

"Teru, please?" Rei's voice was soft and gentle, but underscored by a quiet, frightening desperation. "Let me see you? Let me see… all of you?"

Teru shook his head, but he felt a playful smile tug at the corners of his mouth. This was almost familiar ground. "No," he whispered, and the words felt right. For once, maybe, he had said his line exactly on cue. "No," he repeated. "Let me see you."

Rei's shoulders seemed to tense for a moment, the look in his eyes akin to wild terror. But they were here, after all. It had been Rei who had wanted this, and Teru knew that he would not say no. His trembling hands had all the permission they had ever needed; buttons fell out of their holes as though they had been crying all evening for release.

"Wait!" Rei turned his face away, flinching as though he had been burned. "You can't… I mean, not – not yet."

Teru withdrew his hand, ashamed. "I'm sorry." He bowed his head. "I thought you meant…"

But then he felt Rei's warm, strong hand close around his own, and when he looked up he saw an unspoken apology. "I did." His eyes flitted restlessly over Teru's face, always refusing to look him directly in the eye. "It's just… you can't." He glanced down at his other arm, still imprisoned in its cage of metal and moulded plastic, the fingers growing purple and blue as a result of being held too long in the same position. Rei said nothing more, but Teru's stomach boiled with pity and shame. He hadn't done the right thing after all.

"Tell me if I hurt you." His whisper was a terrified one, but if listening ears were kind, it could have been interpreted as almost sensual. He turned his attention to the sling, perversely grateful that it had been designed to be removed with only one hand; the mechanisms were unfamiliar, but simple enough, and when he had been freed of the contraption, Rei breathed a barely-audible sigh of relief.

"You could never hurt me, Teru," he replied belatedly as Teru began to gently massage the poor, cold, purple fingers, trying to breathe some life into them, or at least some warmth. "You should know that, before we… begin. I am in constant pain…" He closed his eyes. "Every second of every minute of every day. It hurts when you touch me, Teru."

Teru began to pull away, but Rei took his wrist with his left hand and forcibly pulled him back. "It hurts when you touch me," he repeated, looking Teru evenly in the eyes. "But it hurts even more when you don't."

Teru nodded, but when he returned his attention to Rei's high-necked shirt, he made an effort to move slowly, gingerly. He didn't know of anything that he could do to ease this beautiful man's pain, but it was the least he could do not to make it worse. Buttons fell away, exposing a slender neck, as white as fine porcelain, a well-shaped, prominent collarbone. He peeled the edges of the shirt away, longing to see everything, but wanting at the same time to make these moments of discovery last forever.

Rei shifted his weight slightly to one side, and the dim pink and yellow lights cast their warm gaze upon his neck, so pale that Teru wondered if it had seen even this much light in years. He pulled the collar open a bit further, almost convinced that it would be okay to caress the side of the neck. His fingers traveled across the collarbone, barely touching the skin, and Rei sighed in mingled contentment and anticipation.

Then the sigh turned into a sharp intake of breath, and Teru jerked his hand away. "I'm – I'm sorry. Did I hurt you? Wh – what…?" He returned his left hand to Rei's neck, seeking permission in the other man's eyes as he allowed his fingers to trace the twisted scar tissue that ran down the side of the neck. His right hand continued to unbutton the shirt, widening the collar until there was no collar at all, but only two halves of a whole that fell away obligingly, allowing Teru to see everything for the first time.

The entire right side of Rei's neck was contorted into what seemed to be one endless, seamless scar, a river of twisted, bloodless flesh that snaked around his shoulder and onto his back, pulling the healthy skin around it into puckered swirls of pink. Teru brushed the side of the neck gently with his fingers and asked again, "Am I hurting you?"

"No." Rei shook his head, but his body was taut, on edge.

Teru's hands moved slowly downward, seeking permission for every fraction of a centimeter and finding it in Rei's terrified but eager eyes. The shirt sleeves gave way grudgingly, sliding down Rei's slender arms only with Teru's guidance, only with the brush of hesitant fingers against skin that was surprisingly warm and smooth. The pale cascade of burned and twisted skin disappeared, continuing into the undiscovered territory of Rei's back. It was replaced for a moment by smooth, unblemished warmth, flawless skin the color of a café latte with just a little too much milk. Rei's skin was at once entirely like and entirely unlike the skin of a woman: soft and delicate, but taut and sculpted in a way that he had never seen on a female body.

Teru exhaled gently in what was almost a sigh of relief, a breathy expression of admiration. But his fingers continued to explore, and while one of his hands rejoiced in the velvety heat of a well-toned shoulder and bicep, the other was pulled away in an instant, a panicked reaction of shock but not really of surprise. "Oh, Rei…" The skin immediately beneath his right shoulder was distorted in a swirl of pain, and angry red and white reminder of some long-dead sacrilege, an unwanted invasion into the temple of the body.

Rei flinched, but did not look away. "Please… don't stop." He grasped Teru's left hand firmly with his own and returned it to its place with a resigned determination. "Please?"

"Can – can you feel this?" Teru sought a winding path with a single finger down the bicep. The muscles there were withered and powerless, soft in a way that spoke of decay rather than of youth and vitality. Rei closed his eyes and shuddered at the touch as it found narrower, less-offensive scars – marks not of destruction but of attempted healing.

He shook his head, but his answer was not entirely negative: "A little. It's enough."

Silence returned, then, as the explorer turned his hesitant attention to the unknown regions of chest and stomach. Rei's body was toned in the way that many visual boys' were – not_ soft_, exactly, but slimmed by efforts that depended on meager amounts of low-calorie foods as much as they did on exercise. Another scar stretched across his chest, the mark of another surgery. His abdomen was flat and beautiful, a stretch of creamy skin interrupted only by a trail of curly black hair leading down… down…

"Don't stop." It was more of a plea than a command, but the difference hardly mattered to Teru, who had already slipped his hands around Rei's slender waist and was doing his best to slide the long black skirt over his negligible hips. Teru had seen these skirts before. They were a staple of visual fashion – long and plain, machine washable, and rendered one-size-fits-all by an elastic waistband that would have made their removal easy enough, were the wearer standing up. As it was, however, Teru found himself fighting inelegantly against the elastic, his process hindered by the malleable warmth of the bed.

"Just a second…" He withdrew his hand. "Lie down."

Rei's eyes widened, a flash of panic ricocheting through them like lightning on a balmy summer night. He opened his mouth for a moment as if to speak – but Teru knew exactly what to do. Placing his hands gently in the small of Rei's back, he guided him gently onto the bed, watching with satisfaction as tension dissolved into trust. His hands sought the waistline, the hips once more, and this time the long black skirt obliged, falling to the floor in a tangle.

The unnecessary bit of clothing was soon abandoned; Teru's eyes began their return journey hesitantly, lingering too long on what were fairly unremarkable feet and legs distinguished only by the anticipated scars that made them asymmetrical, shallow trenches of infertile ground running through a forest of soft curly hair that he both longed and feared to touch. The sloping peaks of well-formed pelvic bones beckoned to him, hidden now only by a delicate drape of black stretch cotton. His hand traveled north of its own volition, but hesitated on the border. _I can't._ This was too final. There were some places that he just wasn't ready to go.

"Teru?"

Teru closed his eyes and turned away, ashamed. "I'm sorry. I – I just…"

A warm hand closed around his wrist and pulled it up, away from the promise and the threat of complete discovery. Teru let his eyes fall open again; Rei was not smiling, but he was not angry either. His face was strangely… calm. Peaceful. Maybe even content.

"You don't have to." He released Teru's hand then, and fighting against the mattress returned himself slowly but gracefully to a sitting position. Teru opened his mouth, desperate to protest, but he was silenced as Rei's finger flew swiftly to his lips, sealing them shut and quenching his desire to speak, to move, or to do anything at all. "Not yet," Rei whispered. "It's my turn."

His fingers fell lightly through Teru's hair, eliciting long-buried memories of a time when someone else – his mother? his father? – had sat beside him as he drifted into sleep, touching him with a gentleness, an innocence that he never would have attributed to Rei before tonight. He closed his eyes, and a whisper of a sigh escaped from somewhere that was supposed to be empty and dead. _What is he doing to me?_

But Rei was doing nothing at all, simply allowing his hand to graze the side of Teru's face and neck, to rest upon his shoulder, leaving trails of goosebumps in its wake. His touch was light, hesitant, as though he were afraid that Teru were little more than a fairy or a phantom that might vanish without a trace.

_Relax_, Teru told himself, though his body seemed disinclined to agree. His breathing was short and anxious, and when Rei slid his hand at last under Teru's shirt and up his chest, his body shuddered in response, even as his mouth released a passionate, needy sigh. He raised his arms reflexively – this was one possibility that he hadn't thought to dress for, and past experience told him that Rei's button-up shirt had been far easier to remove than his own skin-tight tank top would be.

Neither man spoke as the shirt found its way slowly, begrudgingly up Teru's chest, over his face and head where it lingered for a moment, resisting the silent cooperation that Teru attempted to give by twisting his body, raising first one shoulder and then the other to keep the shirt in place as Rei raised it, bit by bit, over his head and shoulders and finally off onto the floor. His pants put up less of a fight; the button and zipper were undone after only a couple of failed attempts, and Teru stood up to complete the task himself, leaving the pants crumpled into a puddle next to the shirt, and himself vulnerable and exposed. Only a pair of faded plaid boxers remained, relics of his high school days that would never had made it into today's wardrobe if he'd had any idea…. But he didn't delude himself about those either. Soon, there would be nothing at all, and he would be Rei's completely.

The idea was deliciously terrifying.

"Come here." Rei extended his hand to meet Teru's in the air over the bed. "You're beautiful. Teru… you're so beautiful."

"So are you." Teru's reply was almost a plea. "I wish you would believe that."

And then, to Teru's surprise, Rei stood. He had been half-expecting to be pulled to the bed, had been steeling himself against that possibility and preparing himself to deal with it, to welcome it. But he was not prepared for the possibility that what Rei wanted from him was not what he had feared – at least not yet. Their eyes met; Rei's searched Teru's, looking for something that was only half there, too wise and too paranoid to be deceived.

"You're not ready."

Teru shook his head. "No," he breathed. "I am. I – I think I am."

Rei smiled a sad smile. "No, you're not. Not yet…"

This was true, maybe. Teru wasn't sure of anything anymore. "So – so what happens now?"

Rei pressed his index finger against Teru's lips, as though he were telling a small child to be quiet. It lingered there for what may have been a minute or an hour before trailing gently down one side of the mouth, onto the chin, the neck, the chest, and coming to rest at last above the heart.

"Sing for me."

This took Teru by surprise. "Wh – what?"

"You need to relax." Rei's smile widened and took on a sly, flirtatious air. "Sing." He took a step away from the bed, pushing Teru backwards in response. "For." Another push, and Teru played along this time, glancing over his shoulder to make sure that he was on a straight path bound for the sofa, the minibar, and the karaoke set at the far end of the room. "Me!" And both of them collapsed onto the couch, laughing and forgetting, for a moment, that they both were nearly naked.

"I don't know what to sing," Teru complained, pouting as he opened the songbook to the last page and began to flip backwards, toward the beginning.

Rei laughed, as genuine a sound as Teru had ever heard from those lips. "Sing something ridiculously difficult!" he commanded. "Show off! I'll make up a drink while you're deciding." He turned to the minibar, leaving Teru to make the decision on his own.

He flipped backwards through the book, scanning artist names and song titles, but not really finding anything that seemed right. Luna Sea… but he didn't know any of their love songs very well, and most of the others were about hurt, lost loves… not exactly appropriate for the occasion. L'Arc-en-Ciel… he'd liked them once upon a time, but their new stuff… He could do better. hide? Pink Spider was a good song, not too sad, at least not in a lost-love sort of way, and it would be hard to find a visual kei song without _some_ sort of sad elements to it. The last note could be hit-or-miss, though… not a great way to "show off," he decided, but he stuck a finger in the page to mark it, just in case.

Seikima-II? A lot of their songs were about ecology and human rights… that, at least, wouldn't offend anyone. He scanned the list of song titles; there were quite a few, actually. Bad Again? It was pretty, but maybe a little too sad, in a non-ecological kind of way. Stainless Night? Nothing about heartache there, but it wasn't a very difficult song to sing, either. _Masquerade…?_ Teru blushed and turned the page in a hurry. _Somehow_, he thought,_ I don't think that Masquerade is the song that Rei wants me to sing._

There was always X Japan, waiting for him at the front of the book. Those songs were safe – he knew the words my heart, so he could focus on his voice, not on the lyrics scrolling across the bottom of the screen. It felt a little like a copout: Rei already knew that he could sing X, but there were plenty of_ songs_ that he hadn't sung yet. Forever Love… but it was too early for that, it was as inappropriate as the heartache variety, though in a different way. Crucify My Love? Teru shook his head. Too much English; he didn't want Rei to laugh at his pronunciation. Kurenai? Too sad, maybe… or at least too angry. Tears?

Teru considered. Tears was sad, yes, but it had nothing to do with masks or lost chances or the futility of romance. It was about Yoshiki's dead father – not exactly a laughing matter, but nothing that would personally injure Rei. It was difficult to sing, but Teru knew that he could do it. And while it was X, it was at least an X song that Rei had never heard him sing before.

The first strains of the intro forced their tinny way through the hotel room speakers, trying their hardest to sound like pianos and guitars rather than the poorly-synthesized bits of MIDI that they were. Teru took a sip of the red wine that Rei had poured while he had been pouring through the song book, letting the alcohol warm and relax him. He allowed his gaze to linger on Rei's eyes as the intro faded and grew into the body of the song, though the expression that he found there was unreadable.

"Doko ni yukeba ii?

Anata to hanarete…"

_Where should I go/Now I'm parted from you_

He sang the first lines of the song as he had a hundred times before, as comfortable in the opening lines as he was in his own home. It _was _coming home, in a sense, to sing a song that he knew like the back of his hand, to fall back into rhythms that were less performance than they were habit, to let the song wash over him like the waves of a sea out of childhood memory, like a recurring dream that comforted rather than frightened. This was the song that the remaining members of the band had played at hide's funeral two years ago; remembering that, the emotions flooded into him like an old friend as well, and he embraced the sadness, allowed it to color his voice and make it whole as he finished the first chorus in a triumph.

"Loneliness, your silent whisper

Fills a river of tears through the night"

Teru stole a glance at Rei's face, seeking approval for his English, but the only expression he found there was distant, thoughtful. Bored, or moved? Teru couldn't tell. He took a breath, steeling himself for the cry of agony that was needed for the next verse.

"Memory, you never let me cry.

And you, you never said goodbye!

Sometimes the tears blinded our love,

We lost our dreams along the way"

Rei's head was bowed; he seemed not to be paying attention to Teru at all.

"But I never thought you'd trade your soul to the fates;

Never thought you'd leave me alone!"

The song continued, but Teru did not. Rei was nearly doubled over on the sofa, his body trembling – crying? His face was hidden in shadow, his expression unreadable, but his shoulders and back shook under the weight of some unknown emotion.

"Rei?"

Rei looked up, though his body continued to tremble. His eyes were red, bloodshot, haunted – but dry.

"Rei, what's wrong?"

He shook his head. "Nothing." His voice was as dry as his eyes, and his smile was forced. "It's just… a sad song."

"I'm – I'm sorry."

Rei shook his head again, but no words came.

Before Teru had time to consider the consequences, he had the masked man in his arms, the warm flesh of his back beneath his fingers. "I'm sorry," he repeated. "I never meant to make you sad. I never meant…" His fingers made no distinction between perfect flesh and scarred; the body pressed against his own was, in that instant, made whole by an unspoken understanding that passed between them. Something had happened, something needed to be resolved. But words, in this case, would not be the most effective method of resolution.

Rei's lips invited the kiss, and answered it with a force, a need, that Teru had never experienced before. This kiss was not for pleasure, was not for play. It was more like eating or drinking or breathing – it seemed as though they would both die without it. It was water in the desert after a long drought; it was ambrosia after a lifetime of gruel.

"Teru…"

"Hm?"

"The bed? I want to see you… in bed."

This time, Teru did not need to consider his answer. They walked back to the bed hand in hand, Teru slowing his pace to match Rei's at every step, Rei trying not to lean on Teru for support, but not bothering to apologize when he did. At last, they lay beside each other in the pink-gold light, their bodies conductors that needed only to be exposed and connected.

Rei initiated the kiss this time, and Teru gave in completely. He ran his fingers through the purple hair, regretting only slightly that it was a wig, that the action could not possibly be giving Rei the same pleasure that he had received earlier.

"Teru?"

Rei lay on his back, speaking more to the ceiling than to Teru himself. His hair was splayed across the pillow in disarray, though neither the wig nor the mask had moved a fraction of a centimeter from their original positions. He cradled his bad arm self-consciously against his chest, and his breathing came in heavy sobs that may have been either eagerness or terror. "Teru?" he repeated, a bit louder.

"What is it? What's wrong?"

"Are you happy?"

The question came as a shock; Teru was not sure how he was expected to answer. "What do you mean?"

Rei's only answer was silence.

"I – I'm happy to be here, now. If that's what you mean. I'm glad that… that we found each other? That we're here, together." It was the truth; he didn't need to lie about that.

Rei nodded, but he didn't move. Was that answer not enough, somehow?

"Rei?" Teru sat up, putting himself deliberately in a position where he knew that he would be visible out of the corner of Rei's eye. "What about you? Are you happy?"

"Yes." The answer came almost immediately, but the haunted look in Rei's eyes didn't confirm it. "Yes..." he repeated, as though trying to convince himself. "And… and no? I don't know." His eyes sought Teru's, pleaded with them. "I don't know."

"Do you… Do you trust me?" Teru extended a hesitant hand and placed it atop both of Rei's as he waited for his answer.

"Y – Yes." The response followed a moment's hesitation, but this time it contained no doubt.

_He trusts me. That much I can believe. So why…?_

"Let me see you." He hadn't planned to ask the impossible – or had he? The words seemed to come of their own accord, but they didn't feel wrong. This time, he knew, he would get a different answer – whether he really wanted it or not.

"No." The reply came instinctively, but this time Rei's voice faltered, unsure of itself.

"I want to know you, Rei. I want to know all of you." He touched the edge of the mask. Rei flinched, but he didn't pull away. "Let me see your face. Please."

Rei nodded, and the look in his eyes was that of a child anticipating his first shot, a student waiting for the results of a test that he knew he had failed. "Okay," he whispered dryly. "Okay."

* * *

**Notes:**

Yet another one of those chapters that I'm terrified to finally post! I apologize for the delay as well… this has been a busy week for me, and on top of it all there were bits of this chapter that I wrote and re-wrote more times than I can count. I hope this ended up being the best possible version.

The usually disclaimers apply… all of the bands and artists and songs mentioned here are (or were) real, and none of them belong to me in any way. "Tears" lyrics belong to Yoshiki, not me, and anything written in English in the text was originally that way, no translation credit either. I have no idea if there's a love hotel called Rakuen in Shibuya. It wouldn't actually surprise me as it's kind of a cliché name… but the setting for this chapter is entirely fictional.

Finally, apologies for the cliffhanger. I'll try to get the next chapter up ASAP, I know this was an evil thing to do!


	18. datenshi

**Acknowledgements:** Thanks to Musique et Amour for betaing my unending flow of angst yet again – all of the hard work is much appreciated. And a perennial thanks to all of my readers, reviewers, squee-ers, and everyone who inspires me to keep going, no matter how hard this story is to write.

**Chapter 18: datenshi -fallen angel-**

Teru should have been prepared for this moment. He had staged this scene a hundred times in his mind, each time giving a different face to the man who waited behind the mask. Sometimes he was twisted and burned, sometimes cut and shattered. Teru imagined him to be nearly perfect, beauty tainted by only the echoes of pain, and yet he had also imagined things so terrible he knew them to be impossible by the sole virtue of the fact that Rei had survived. A hundred times he had painted a thousand different faces, and each time he had seen himself as well, calm and kind and understanding, completely accepting of whatever he told himself to see.

He would pull the mask away, and whatever he saw would be beautiful. He would show no sign of horror or shock, but take Rei's hand in his own, and reassure him that it wasn't a crime to face the world, to let the world face him. He was ready for this moment; there was nothing else that he could do.

And yet, that did not prevent his hand from trembling as it brushed against the unforgiving edges of the mask, did not give him the courage to comfort Rei as he flinched, closing his eyes and steeling his body against the invited, but still unwanted intrusion. It would have been kinder to stop, to let matters continue, as they had, in peaceful ignorance. But he had to know.

_Forgive me, Rei…_ He could not speak the words aloud, not yet, but that did not stop them from being true. _I can't love someone I don't know… and I'm beginning to… maybe… I think…_

"Please…" Rei spoke at last, and Teru pulled his hand away, shocked.

"Rei, I…" _I can't stop. Please don't make me._

"Please… do it quickly. Just end it, please!" Rei clenched his teeth and clutched at the edge of the blanket with his good hand, as though steeling himself for some unbearable pain.

Teru thrust his fingers under the edges of the wig and pulled it away.

Rei was silent, still, as though waiting for some sort of verdict, but Teru had nothing to give. He saw nothing more terrible that what he had imagined: the fires that had consumed Rei's shoulder and neck had continued upward, singing his hair and leaving pale, melted pathways in its place. The hair that remained in patches had been cut short, probably shaved to accommodate the wigs. Teru touched it, hesitantly, afraid that his uncertain hands would somehow hurt instead of heal.

"Am – am I hurting you?"

"No…" Rei growled through clenched teeth. "The mask! Take… take it off. Quickly!"

He opened his eyes at last, and it seemed to take all of his strength to keep them locked with Teru's, to forbid them from turning away. An understanding passed between them, then. Rei would see the look in Teru's eyes before he ever heard the comforting words, silently rehearsed so many times. Whether it was horror or love that he found there, he_ would_ find it, and Teru would be powerless to hide it from him. It was not a test, it was not a dare. Each of them sought the same thing.

_I want to see you. Whatever it is that I see, I want to see YOU. I have to know…_

The mask was torn away, and they saw much more than they had ever wanted to see.

Neither of them spoke. Neither of them moved. Teru's hand fell to his side, and the mask tumbled on to the bed, robbed of all of its former power and mystique, now little more than a prop that no longer belonged on the stage.

"Wow." It was all that he could think of to say, but the look in Rei's eyes before he broke their tenuous contact told him that it was more than enough.

"My mask." Rei's voice as he turned away was like ice.

"No… no, wait, I… I didn't mean –" Teru shook his head, searching frantically for something, anything, that could salvage whatever had happened, counteract whatever expression must have flashed across his face for that terrible, unforgivable moment.

"Give me my mask. Now."

"Rei, I… I think I need some time." It was possibly the cruelest thing that he could have said, and Teru knew it. He also knew that anything he said or did right now would only make matters worse. He had to go, and Rei let him.

He fled to the bathroom, stumbling over his own feet as the world spun away in a haze of alcoholic confusion. The door slammed shut behind him and he sunk to the floor, his forehead resting on his knees and his chest heaving with dry, uncontrollable sobs. He thought he would cry; he thought he would be sick. And the worst of it was, he couldn't justify those feelings with any sort of logic, couldn't begin to tell himself that any of this was okay. He hated himself in that moment, but he knew as well that hating himself would change absolutely nothing at all. He had done what he had done, and it was despicable.

Teru knew that he should go back, that he should try, at least, to salvage whatever was left of whatever their relationship had been in the first place. But as horrified as he was by his own actions, he was more than a little ashamed to realize that he had been horrified, as well, by the face beyond the mask. He had imagined much worse, had seen much worse on TV. But it was different, somehow, when it was the face of someone he cared for, and no matter how tightly he closed his eyes against the memory, no matter how many other images he tried to inject into his mind's eye, it was all that he could see, magnified a thousand times by terrible, traitorous imagination.

He had assumed, at least, that Rei would still look something like himself, that the obvious beauty that remained in the parts of him untouched by fire and glass and pavement would be enough to compensate for whatever it was that he was hiding. But without the mask, he had been a different person – and Teru was not sure that he could stand to look at, much less touch or kiss, the person that Rei had become.

And yet, he was not willing to give up what he had found, these past few weeks. Teru knew, even huddled on the floor in the bathroom, trying to come to grips with what he knew and what he had seen, that he could not afford to lose what he had with Rei. And so he forced himself to go over every detail of that face a hundred times in his mind, forced himself in his daydreams to smile as he looked into Rei's eyes, ignoring the fact that one of them had no brow or lashes, and didn't manage to blink quite in unison with the other. He forced himself to touch, again, the bristly patches of black hair, to run his fingers over the ear that was little more than a hole set in a mound of molten flesh. He remembered the pale, lifeless cheek, the corner of the mouth that opened a little further and a little less smoothly than it should have.

And he made himself think of the nose that was not a nose at all, but a gaping, lopsided hole where once there had been cartilage and skin. That was the most terrible, perhaps, for it made Rei, who should have been beautiful and strong, look… inhuman, ghostly, _frightening_.

Teru feared that Rei would come to him; he feared that he would not. The part of him that knew that he had made a terrible mistake waged war against the part of him that would have done anything to avoid having to look upon that face again. It shouldn't matter – he knew that. Nothing had changed. But everything had, and Teru didn't know how to deal with it.

_He helped me_, he told himself as he stood up and began to pace the length of the room. H_e took a chance on me when no one else could. He gave me his music, he taught me… everything! And I couldn't even give him this one stupid thing! _Teru clenched his hands into fists, digging trenches with his fingernails in his palms. He wanted to hurt. He _needed_ to hurt, to punish himself for what he had done.

Time and time again he made a circuit of the room, pausing now and again to silently berate his reflection in the mirror, stopping for a moment in front of the locked door before moving on, telling himself that Rei didn't want to see him, that they were both better off alone.

_I shouldn't have loved him, anyway._

It was the truth, perhaps, but for Teru it was also a powerful placebo, a way that he could take the blame without making himself a monster. He had loved the wrong person, had dared to long for someone who was forever beyond his reach. That was his crime, and it was a crime that he could accept – an innocent mistake, a lapse in judgment.

But he knew that it wasn't true, and that was what hurt.

He shouldn't have loved Rei any more than he should have left his family and moved to Tokyo, any more than he should have dyed his hair pink and worn eyeliner to work – but that sort of "shouldn't" had never really bothered Teru before, and it shouldn't have been bothering him now. It was a part of the problem, yes. Even if Rei had been perfect, he was a man, he was forbidden. A week ago, that had been a legitimate issue, but tonight… tonight, Teru had been willing to throw all of that out the window, to take a chance on what could have been real happiness, if not of the conventional sort. Tonight, he had permitted himself not to care…

He punched the faux marble countertop, grateful for the shock of pain that shuddered up his arm. _I deserve to hurt. I deserve to hurt as much as he does, and more._

Teru climbed into the bathtub and turned the faucet, letting the water collect around his feet and ankles and continue upward. It was too hot, but he let it be. He deserved to hurt. He deserved to know what it felt like, to be scalded, to be burned. But his body got used to the heat; the pain subsided, and through the tears that had begun to fall without bothering to tell him that they were there, he saw Rei. They would have been here together, if Teru had not spoiled it, their bodies brushing hesitantly against each other beneath the waves of strawberry-scented foam. They would have held each other, and everything would have been alright. But the Rei in Teru's daydream was smiling and relaxed, the wig still clinging to his head as if it had grown there, the mask still hiding what Teru had never wanted to see.

Why did it hurt so much, to see that face? Was it pity? Maybe. Was it loathing? But he didn't loathe Rei… that much Teru knew. It would have been nice to tell himself that he hated the world that had done such a terrible thing to such a beautiful man, that what he hated was nothing more than the cruelty, the utter randomness of fate. _But human beings aren't that deep. We're afraid, all of us… and it isn't only the face. I don't want to watch him walk, I don't want to watch him eat… I don't want to watch him trying to play the piano, and more than all of that, I don't want to see that face. We look away from wheelchairs and crutches – oh, its not polite to stare, is ignoring any better? Adults who think and act like five-year-olds, children who look like grandmothers! The blind, the deaf, the homeless! Foreigners and the elderly… and boys with pink hair. They stare at me too, or they don't look at all… I'm no better._ Cold tears fell into the steamy bath and dissolved into nothing. _I'm no better than anyone else, and the human race is shit._

When the water had gone cold and his fingers and toes had turned to pale, tepid prunes, Teru rose from the bath and returned at last to the bedroom. He didn't know if anything could be salvaged, now, but he knew that he needed to try. He shouldn't have loved Rei, but he did – he knew that now. He had had a chance, and had wasted it, but he would do everything in his power to give himself another one.

"Rei?" All lights in the room had been turned off. He called out hesitantly as he felt his way through the darkness. "Rei? I'm sorry… I'm so… sorry." But there was no response.

Teru found a light switch and pressed it, flooding a portion of the room with a dim, pinkish light. Rei had fallen asleep on top of the comforter, his mask slightly askew as it attempted to cover his strangely peaceful features. "Oh, Rei…" Teru climbed into the bed beside his friend – his lover – and once more pulled the mask away. He looked at the poor, abused face that lay beneath with no fear, no loathing. He leaned closer, afraid that he might wake Rei, might frighten him. And gently, silently, with nothing but love and remorse in his heart, he placed one final kiss upon those beautiful lips, from which had come the most beautiful voice in the world.

Teru turned his back on Rei, then, and slept on his side facing the far wall. The warmth of the other man, only centimeters away, was both comfort and torture. Tonight they would sleep together, and Teru would imagine Rei to be his. The joy was bittersweet, however, for he knew that in the morning it would be over, and he would be alone again.

For who could ever love someone who could not bear to love them in return?

* * *

**Notes:**

I think this chapter is pretty self-explanatory, but let me apologize for taking so long! My PFN Secret Santa story and my new puppy have been taking up lots of my time, but I'm still inspired to write this story – try not to worry too much.

For your reference, I think that the story is about halfway complete at this point. My outline is always subject to chance… but hey, if you were holding a novel in your hands, you'd be able to see how far you were along… things aren't over just yet!


	19. yujo

**Acknowledgements:** Thanks to all of the usual suspects, Musique et Amour for betaing, advice, MP3s etc. All of my friends in the phanfic community for being a constant source of inspiration and loff. And everyone else who has been an inspiration, whether they know about it or not.

* * *

**Chapter 19: yujo -friendship-**

It was as though the past 24 hours had never happened.

Teru woke to find Rei fully clothed, albeit a bit more rumpled than usual, his clothes creased in all the wrong places from the night they had spent on the floor, and his wig badly in need of a comb. The far side of the bed was tidy and cold; he had not slept there for long.

For a fraction of a moment, Teru could have sworn that their eyes met, that a whisper of concern, of caring, may have threatened to break out from beneath the tightly set line of Rei's lips. It seemed as though he would say something, would do something… or at the very least, would continue to watch Teru as he stumbled into the world of the waking. Rei almost communicated; Teru almost replied. But the instant he sensed Teru's eyes making contact with his own, Rei turned away, pretending to be absorbed in the translucent wallpaper or the filmy, insubstantial curtains.

Teru closed his eyes and tried to will away the flood of toxic memory that poured over him. If he told himself that last night had never happened, then maybe it would be true – or maybe, at least, he could believe that it was. There was nothing that he could do to help Rei now, other than to get out of bed, out of the room, out of Rei's_ life_ as fast as he possibly could. But he could help himself by forgetting, and at the moment that was all he could think to do – to force himself to forget.

_Just think of something else… Singing… Being onstage… The music, the crowd…_

It wasn't enough to erase the memory, wasn't enough to drive it into those deepest, most secret parts of his mind to which he knew he would someday be able to banish it, at least temporarily… but it was enough to distract him, and when Teru opened his eyes, the nausea that had threatened to overwhelm him had been replaced by a strange, throbbing, desperate depression that wouldn't be driven away so easily. Rei had been the music, after all. And he had thrown it all away…

"Get up."

Rei's voice was as rigid as his body, cold and emotionless and horribly empty. He continued to stare at the curtains, and for a moment Teru considered that the command may have been imagined, the steely voice no more than his own futile desire for some kind of contact – anything at all!

"Get out of bed and go home."

This time Teru obeyed. There was nothing more to be said or done; he retrieved his shirt and pants from the floor and dressed himself quickly. There was no reason to shower, no reason to make himself look any better than he felt. Half hoping that he might get a glimpse of whatever expression Rei wore on his face, he returned briefly to the bathroom and made a show of looking for some imagined item that he pretended to have forgotten.

When he saw himself in the mirror, he could hardly believe that he had once looked at his own reflection with pride, with satisfaction. It wasn't just the dark circles under his eyes, the uncombed hair and the closest thing to stubble that would ever grow on his chin. When Teru looked in the mirror, he no longer saw the face and the body that sold tickets, that would soon be selling CDs. He didn't see the young man who had come to Tokyo full of hope and dreams, and he didn't see the cool, collected professional that he had to try to be when he was performing. He saw something ugly, something mean, something that he never should have been – and he hated it.

_Who's the goddamned cripple now? _He screamed silently at himself.

He had never allowed himself to use that word – even to think that word – in connection with Rei, but he threw it at his own reflection now. Even in the instant that he dared to think it, even in the confines of his own mind, he knew it wasn't fair. He had no right to feel sorry for himself. Even if he were slightly impaired when it came to things like sympathy and compassion, it was his own damn fault. He had done what he had done, not because fate had dealt him a shitty hand, but because he hadn't known how to play a halfway decent one. But it made him feel better, somehow, to make himself feel worse, and so he allowed his heart to cry, even as he forced his body to walk emotionlessly out the door.

* * *

He had had every intention of going home, but by the time the train swept into Shinjuku Station, overshooting its mark and forcing the passengers waiting on the platform to rearrange themselves round doors that were suddenly in all the wrong places, Teru had begun to feel, to _know_, that he couldn't stand to be alone right now. He couldn't remember if he'd been scheduled to work today or not, but if the manager called him, he could always pretend to be sick. _Wouldn't even be too hard, right now. Tell them I feel like shit… Isn't even a lie._ Being in the store, having to smile and look like he was happy to cater to everyone's stupid little requests… that would be almost as bad as going home and staring at the wall.

And so he found himself standing on the Yamanote Line platform, balancing a lit cigarette in one shaking hand and his cell phone in the other, searching desperately through his speed-dial list for someone to confide in, someone he could talk to in pseudonyms and what ifs – someone who would understand enough, perhaps, of what he didn't want to say.

Yasu answered on the first ring. "Hey. Feeling better?"

Teru was taken aback for a second before he remembered. _Rehearsal. That's right. I skipped rehearsal last night…_ "Yeah. Um, yeah… I'm okay now, but…"

"Teru? You don't sound okay. What's up? Where are you?"

It had taken far fewer words than he had feared to get that message across; Teru breathed a heavy sigh of relief. "Shinjuku. Can you meet me here? I don't… I don't think I can go home right now."

"Okay... okay. Look, I'm at home. I can leave now, just let me get my shoes on… okay? See you at the station in thirty minutes?" Yasu's voice was full of genuine concern, and Teru began to feel sick to his stomach again.

"Yeah. Hey… I'll be outside the east exit, okay?"

The cigarette he had been holding had burnt, forgotten, down to a stub, and he stamped it out with his foot as he hung up the phone, turning a blind eye to the No Smoking sign perched cheerfully above a timetable not three meters away. The lights on either side of the platform began to blink in unison with a warning chime, proclaiming the arrival of the next train, and Teru took this as his cue to flee into the stairwell, into the less carefully controlled chaos of the pedestrian walkway below. He stumbled past a chattering group of middle aged ladies, earned a stern look from a 50-something businessman and a mildly interested one from a homeless man of about the same age. A couple of girls clustered around a wall of rental lockers stopped what they were doing to whisper in each others' ears at the sight of him; on any other day, perhaps, he would have wondered if maybe they knew him, would have turned away to keep them from getting a better glimpse, or maybe even a picture of his face sans makeup. On any other day, he might have cared. But at the moment, Teru was concerned with nothing but getting outside, taking that next cigarette out of the pack and lighting it, trying to replace the rot in his heart with nicotine, with sunshine, with anything at all.

Teru did not consider himself an especially heavy smoker, but by the time Yasu arrived, thirty minutes later as he had promised, he had smoked no less than seven cigarettes down to the filter, scattering the butts in the apathetic beginnings of a mountain at his feet.

"What happened to the Clean Shinjuku Campaign?" It was a lame attempt at a joke, and Yasu must have known it; his face wore an apologetic smile that somehow managed to make Teru feel better than genuine optimism could have done.

"Hey, Yasu." He didn't bother to answer the question.

"Hey, Teru. What's up?"

"Yeah..." Teru had been leaning against the rail that separated the sidewalk from the street in front of the station, but when Yasu approached he stood up, shaking his head. He didn't know anyone here, and they didn't know him – but even so, he didn't think he could say what he needed to say in public, if he could bring himself to say it at all. "Can we go somewhere? Sit down?"

"Sure." Yasu clapped his friend on the shoulder. "Coffee?"

Teru nodded. Coffee didn't sound bad, and for the first time since he had left the izakaya last night, he thought that he might be able to eat something. "Yeah… that's good. Anywhere's fine. Just… somewhere close, okay?"

There must have been a hundred coffee shops within walking distance of the station, and it took them no time at all to find one with cheap coffee, sandwiches, and an empty corner booth that was the closest thing that they were going to get to privacy in the middle of the biggest city in the world. It was a nice place, Teru found himself admitting with that inane part of his mind that still insisted on focusing on anything, _everything_, except for the events of the night before. The booth was comfortable enough, the table clean and broad and shining as though it had just been lacquered or varnished or whatever it was that people did to tables in the first place. It would have been nice to just sit here, with his best friend, and talk about the things that best friends talk about. But at this particular moment, Teru wasn't sure if he would ever have an afternoon like that again.

He poured a tube of sugar into his coffee and began to stir again and again and again, until the crystals had dissolved and more that a few stray drops of drink had sloshed over the edge of the cup and onto the formerly pristine table. His hands wouldn't stop shaking. He wanted to tell his friend everything; he wanted to forget it all and go home. A hundred times he began the conversation in his mind, and a hundred times he decided that he couldn't say _that_, not here, not now. But he had to say something, before Yasu worked up the courage to ask something more specific.

"So…" Teru hoped that he sounded more relaxed than he felt. "How did rehearsal go?"

Yasu blinked, evidently surprised by this particular choice of opening lines. "It was… okay. Of course, the new drummer couldn't make it, and then you were… sick. But it's the rest of us that really need the work, isn't it?" Teru could not tell whether this was supposed to be a compliment or a joke, but he feigned a smile, hoping against hope that it was halfway believable. "Actually," Yasu continued, "I did need to talk to you about some things. Gigs, recording… Yuu wants to put out an album."

Teru was genuinely shocked, and for a moment, the events of the night before were nearly forgotten. "An _album?_" He nearly choked on a bite of chicken sandwich. "No way. We don't have enough songs."

"Yeah we do." Yasu shrugged. "If we re-record some of the stuff we did with Bara. Then we've got my new one, and Rei's two… Depends on how well the single sells, though. They're already taking reservations."

Teru tried to make some sort of noncommittal response, but at the sound of Rei's name, his tongue had glued itself to the roof of his mouth and his heart had wedged itself into that uncomfortable place between his throat and his windpipe, making it suddenly very difficult to breathe. He nodded and tried to smile, but Yasu had known him for too long to be fooled by such a half-assed attempt at acting, and Teru knew it.

"But we both know that you didn't call me here to talk about band shit, Teru." Yasu leaned across the table as far as he could, challenging Teru to an unintentional staring contest, or maybe just a contest of wills. "What happened last night?"

Teru took a deep breath and turned his gaze to the inky depths of his remaining coffee. "I wasn't sick last night," he admitted in a rush. "I was… I was with someone."

He stole a glimpse at Yasu's face, and was relieved to see that his expression revealed neither excitement nor disgust. "With someone" could be a good thing or a bad thing, when the following morning rolled around, and Yasu understood that. He understood, and he wouldn't tell the others. That much passed between them, and Teru knew that it was okay to go on.

"Have you ever felt like… like you had someone really special? Only, you didn't realize how special they were, until… until you had lost them?" Teru hadn't meant to say that; it hadn't been a part of anything he had mentally rehearsed, but when he heard the words from his own lips, they sounded true, they sounded right, and they made him see what he had really lost, maybe for the first time.

Yasu nodded. "You know I have, man. Fucking sucks."

"Yeah..." Teru took a sip of coffee, and found that his hands had stopped their shaking, that he was beginning to feel a little more like himself. Himself with a broken heart and a shattered future… but himself, nonetheless. "It does."

"Hey, look." Yasu's eyes met his once more, but this time they were kind, almost smiling, but without a trace of mirth. "You don't have to tell me anything you don't want to, okay? But, you know… I'm here for you. If you want to… you know. Hell, I'm no good at this… but I'm sorry, man. I really am."

Teru shook his head. "It's okay, really… It feels better just to, you know… talk about it. You don't have to say anything." He took another sip of coffee, and for a moment it seemed as though the conversation was over. But then, suddenly, he knew what he had to say, what he had to ask. Maybe Yasu wasn't the best one to ask when it came to advice about girls… but Rei wasn't a girl, and in a way… that might even be an advantage.

"Yasu?"

"Yeah?"

"What would you do if you had a big secret? Something really bad, like… I don't know, an ugly birthmark, or an extra toe?" Those were lame examples, but Teru could think of nothing better – at least, nothing that wouldn't give away the fact that he was talking about someone whom Yasu had already met, and spoken to, and probably wondered about as much as Teru had. "And, and what if you decided to show a girl," he continued, refusing to look his friend in the eye, "because you really liked her, and you thought that with her it would be different, with her… she might be able to, I don't know, look past the, um… extra toe, and see _you_."

Yasu raised an eyebrow, but said nothing.

"And what if…" Teru continued, unable to stop the words once they had started, unable to stop the tone of self-loathing that had crept into his voice, or the stinging tears that threatened to manifest themselves in his eyes. "And what if, when you showed this girl, who should have been different… What if she was just like all the others, and she hated you, and she ran…" He took a deep breath, trying to calm himself for the question that he had to ask: "Could you ever forgive her? Could you ever take her back?"

Yasu whistled and cocked his head to one side as though trying to make sense of the convoluted series of what ifs he had just been given. "Damn…" he whispered at last. "I don't know… girls are funny about that shit, you know?"

Teru nodded. "I guess." _But what about YOU, Yasu? What about men?_

"Alright, so let me get this straight… you saw this chick's extra toe or whatever it was, and freaked? Do you even _want_ her back?" Yasu shook his head. "I don't know… this stuff takes time, and I'm not exactly an expert on getting girls back once they're gone."

Teru shook his head. "It's not like that... I don't even know if I can explain. I didn't _freak_. I just saw something… private, and I was shocked. But I _do_ want… you know. I wish I hadn't…"

"Okay." Yasu smiled, and it made Teru feel a little better. His best friend didn't think he was the lowest form of scum on the face of the planet – that was something, at least. "I don't know if she'll take you back, man, but I guess, if it was me… Just ignore it. No, wait! Apologize first, and _then_ ignore it. Like… 'Hey there, sorry I freaked about your whatever-it-was, I really don't mind, not disgusted, etc.' And then take her to dinner or something. Or, even better, somewhere fun. Bowling, skating, I don't know… somewhere where she doesn't have to think about it, she can just have fun and remember how much she likes you and what a fun guy you really are. And then, you just ignore it. Never mention it again, and she gets it – you don't care."

"Okay." Teru's smile felt a little less forced, this time. It seemed too simple… but it also seemed like it just might work. Never mind that the thought of dragging Rei to a bowling alley was either too funny or too tragic for words, the basic concept was a good one. _He's already feeling sorry for himself… if I really want to be with him, I have to be the one to help him forget… all of that. Apologize, have fun, ignore it._ It was easier said than done, perhaps, but… "Thanks. That actually… that sounds okay."

"No problem." Yasu shrugged, returning his attention to his lukewarm coffee for a moment before his eyes grew wide, and he had to clap a frantic hand over his mouth to keep himself from spraying his drink all over the table. "Oh, shit," he exclaimed, as though something had just dawned on him. "No way."

Teru froze, terrified. "Wh – what is it?"

"No way!" Yasu repeated, but to Teru's surprise, his face broke into a smile and he started to laugh. "I can't believe I didn't figure this out earlier! 'I was with someone last night'? Oh, man, Teru… It was Kiyomi, wasn't it? You got lucky with Kiyomi!"

"Wh – what?" Teru blinked, unable to believe, for a moment, that his ears were not playing tricks on him. Yasu thought that he had been with Kiyomi. Yasu hadn't figured it out after all. _He thinks it was Kiyomi… Kiyomi…_

Yasu shook his head, still laughing as though the entire conversation up to that point had been some kind of brilliant joke. "I can't believe it… Well, this changes everything! Damn, just go back and apologize! No problem… Kiyomi!"

Teru's face had gone bright red. "What do you mean… no problem?"

"I mean she's smitten! You saw her at the show… that girl is head over heels in love! And trust me, she is not the type to hold a grudge. I mean it! Cheer up!" Yasu laughed again, his face as red as Teru's. "Hell, we can call her right now! Give me your phone."

Teru didn't move.

"Come on, give me your phone!" And Yasu reached across the table, plucking Teru's phone out of his open bag before Teru had a chance to object. "Alright, let me see… Na, na… Nakamori! Here she is!"

"No… wait…"

"It's ringing! Here!" Yasu thrust the phone into Teru's hand and leaned back in his seat, evidently sure that he had done his friend a great service.

"Hello?" Kiyomi's voice came pouring out of the phone before Teru had a chance to get it to his ear. "Hello?"

"Um… hello." Teru shot Yasu a look that should have been poisonous, but Yasu only laughed and smiled.

"Teru? It's good to hear from you! How are you?"

"I'm… I'm okay. You?"

"I'm pretty good. You're lucky, you caught me on my lunch break!" She sounded genuinely happy, and another stab of guilt was added to the ever-growing pile in Teru's heart. He hadn't actually spoken to her in awhile.

"Let me guess," she continued. "No show this week, and I haven't seen you in ages…. Yes!" Her voice blossomed into a flutter of flirtatious giggles, obviously pleased with whatever she had managed to infer.

"Yes?"

"To your invitation, silly! Come on, you don't think I know why you were calling me? Well, I said yes, and I'm free on Sunday, and…"

"S – Sunday?"

"I'm off, your show's not until next week... It's perfect! What did you have in mind?"

"Um… yeah, sure… Sunday… Sunday works for me." Teru stammered, taken off guard by the sudden invitation. He'd never known a girl to be so forward – and yet, she wasn't unfeminine, wasn't unkind. He couldn't say no to the giggling voice on the other end of the connection, though he wasn't really sure that he wanted to be saying yes, either.

Kiyomi laughed again, and this time it was deeper, more adult. "Okay, I assume that means no plans. How about we meet in front of Alta again, and decide from there? Everyone else will be meeting for lunch at noon… so let's make it 11:50." Teru could almost see the mischievous glint in her eye.

"S – sure. That's… good. Yeah. So, see you, Kiyomi?"

"See you on Sunday! Bye!"

Teru hung up the phone with a dazed look on his face, unsure of exactly what had just happened. He hadn't forgotten about Rei; that particular cloud hadn't been lifted from his heart, but it had been joined by another. _Rei… Kiyomi… I have to hurt one of them, or both. Fuck. Fuck fuck fuck._

The mental curse became a spoken one as his phone began to vibrate on the table, seconds after he had put it down. It was 7-11. He must have been scheduled to work today, after all.

* * *

**Notes:** Apologies again for the delay... this chapter has been written and beta'd for awhile, and I just couldn't find the 15 minutes or so needed to correct, format, and post. I'm very sorry to keep you waiting.

After the last chapter, for whatever reason, I was asked by several different people how autobiographical this story is. There are really two answers to that question: entirely, and not at all. None of my characters are "me," and none of them are based on any individual that I know. Every scene in this phic is entirely fictional, and nothing that happened to my characters has ever happened to me or anyone close to me. But as I've mentioned before, the setting is real, the subculture in which this story is set is very real and, I hope, accurately represented. And while none of the characters are living my life specifically, every single one of them has pieces of me inside them, if that makes sense.

This story is not autobiographical at all, but it is intensely personal, and it means more than I can express in words that so many of you are identifying with my characters. Thank you all so much, always.


	20. yume no jitsugen

**Acknowledgements:** Thanks to Musique et Amour for beta-ing, and to all of my readers and reviewers for... well, for reading and reviewing!

* * *

**Chapter 20 – yume no jitsugen -dreams come true-**

He thought a hundred times that he would turn back, and two or three times he actually did, retracing his steps back to his apartment, then back to the station again until he began to feel a little like a prisoner pacing anxiously in his cell, or an animal trapped in an invisible pen. In the end, however, Teru did buy a ticket and board the train for Shinjuku at 11:55, five minutes after he had promised to meet Kiyomi on the sidewalk in front of Alta.

His face, reflected in the window, stared back at him with a gaze that was almost accusing, and he wondered what Kiyomi would see there, what she would make of the mix of emotions that made no sense at all, even to Teru himself. It wasn't that he didn't want to see her. The smile that he wore was genuine enough, but it was fragile, transparent, and behind it lurked a relief and a desperation that he could not help but feel as he escaped to her again, as though she were not a woman but a sanctuary. Though he had never intended it, Teru had made her into someone to fall back on, someone to distract him from his problems, though he could never confide in her about them. Would she know? Would she somehow be able to sense with the terrible feminine wisdom that she _must_ possess, by the simple virtue of being a girl… would she be able to see the guilt that lingered in the depths of his eyes, and could she possibly know what it meant?

The questions raced through his mind as quickly as the trees and skyscrapers and apartment buildings flew past the windows of the express train, and in the end Teru was able to reach no conclusions, to give himself no comfort and to erase none of the discomfort from his heart or from his face. Shinjuku was only five minutes away, after all, and if the previous forty-eight hours had done nothing for his nerves, it was silly to have expected anything of the train ride.

Kiyomi was waiting for him, and though he did not recognize her immediately in the Sunday afternoon crowd, he knew that she would not have been late a second time, not when she had been so enthusiastic about their date. That was what it was, whether Teru had wanted it or not. And he owed it to her at least to smile, to laugh, and to show her a good time. She was too good for him, but she wouldn't understand that if he tried to tell her. And so he did the only thing that he could do: he scanned the crowd, looking for her shining eyes and teasing smile in a sea of faces, beautiful and homely alike, all turned toward the station, waiting for the friends or colleagues or lovers who would come, who _must_ come, because it was a beautiful Sunday afternoon in Shinjuku, and it was still to early for any of them to be entertaining the notion that something, anything, might go wrong.

The traffic light on the corner turned from red to green, and the little green man on the pedestrian signal tipped his hat to the crowd, giving them leave to swarm across the street and double the population of the little stretch of sidewalk. Teru found himself among them, still searching vainly far any sign of Kiyomi. He reached into his pocket for his cell phone. There were too many people here, that was all. If he called her…

"Teru!"

He heard her before he saw her, and when she finally worked her way through the crowd and into his field of vision, he understood why he hadn't recognized her from a distance. When he had met her before, she had always been dressed like the young businesswoman that she was, in trendy brand-name sweaters and blouses, linen skirts in bright colors and patterns, urbane and polished from head to toe. But today was her day off, and he saw in her for the first time the Kiyomi he had known in high school, her chic haircut and mauve lipstick at odds with the long black skirt, matching top and mesh jacket that could easily have come from Teru's own closet, or that of any of his fans.

"Kiyomi." His smile was almost a laugh, but to his relief, it was she who laughed first, her voice rising to mingle with the hundreds of others around them.

"Do I look ridiculous?" Kiyomi spread her arms as widely as she could in the crowd and spun around, modeling the costume like a little girl on her way to a party. "I haven't worn this in ages."

Teru shook his head. "You look fine." He gestured at his own button-up shirt and jeans with a sheepish grin. "But I think I'm a little underdressed."

Kiyomi laughed again, and this time Teru found himself joining her. It was a little funny, after all. She had tried to dress up for him, and he had tried to dress down for her. Things like this happened, and it felt good to laugh about it, just two people out for an afternoon together, just trying to have a good time.

_Take her somewhere where she doesn't have to think about it… Just have fun… Ignore it… You don't care._

Teru shook his head, trying to forget Yasu's words, and what they had meant. They hadn't really been about Kiyomi, after all. She wasn't the one who needed to forget, she wasn't the one who needed to have fun… _Ignore it,_ he told himself again,_ Don't care._

"Teru?" Kiyomi's hand on his shoulder put an end to his musing. "Teru, are you alright?"

It didn't matter. She was here, now, as vibrant and alive as Rei was distant, and looking forward to an afternoon in Teru's company. Maybe he _should_ just relax and have fun.

"What?" He blinked. "No, no… sorry. I mean, yes, I'm fine. Just tired. I missed work on Friday and got hell for it last night. Cleaning out all the freezers…" It wasn't much of an excuse, but it was true: he'd been given all of the least desirable jobs to do as not-so-subtle punishment for his unexplained absence, and his back _did_ hurt from cleaning out the freezers. It seemed to work; Kiyomi gave him a sympathetic smile and squeezed his hand, leading him away from the department store and into the slightly less crowded streets of Kabukicho.

"Shall we do lunch first, then?" she suggested as soon as they had pulled away from the outskirts of the Alta crowd. "Let me guess… Single guy, living alone… No breakfast, right?"

Teru laughed. "Right. But I don't mind waiting, if you're not hungry yet."

"Are you kidding?" Kiyomi squeezed his hand again, and Teru was almost surprised to find that she was still holding it. "Single girl, living alone… My last meal was last night's instant noodles."

They made their way into a chain Italian restaurant and were shown to their table by a young waitress with an "In Training" badge pinned to the front of her blouse. "Here you are." The words came out in a rush as she handed them their menus upside-down and continued into a sales pitch for a lunch special that was apparently valid only on the weekdays.

"Poor girl." Kiyomi smiled kindly at the waitress's back as she scurried off at the summons of a woman who must have been her manager. "Probably her first Sunday."

They ordered without incident, and when the same girl returned to bring their salads, she seemed to have composed herself a bit. "I'm sorry," she apologized with a flush. "I think I must have given you the wrong specials…"

Kiyomi smiled up at her, shaking her head, and the girl smiled back. "You're doing just fine," Kiyomi reassured her. "Thank you very much."

"So, um…" Teru wanted to say something, to compliment her on the way she had spoken to the waitress. He wanted to tell her that she was kind, that she was wonderful, that she deserved so much better than him – but anything he could think of to say sounded flirtatious or self-deprecating or both, and the ease that had somehow arisen between them was too wonderful, to beautiful to spoil. "What, ah… what do you want to do after lunch?" he asked at last. "I hadn't really planned anything."

"After lunch?" A sly smile crept over Kiyomi's beautiful features, and as she opened her mouth to answer him, he noticed for the first time that her front teeth were just a little bit crooked, one overlapping the other at an angle that might have prevented her from starring in toothpaste commercials, but managed in that moment to make her all the more unique and beautiful in his eyes.

_She really is too good for me. I shouldn't…_

"After lunch…" she repeated, cocking her head to one side as though considering the question. "I don't know. Take me shopping?"

"Shopping?" Her answer took Teru by surprise, though he wasn't really sure why. Girls liked shopping – why would Kiyomi be any different? He shrugged. "What do you want to buy?"

Her eyes met his across the table, and she smiled that shy, almost conspiratorial smile that he had come to associate with her wonderful, fiery sense of humor. "Well…" She grinned. "I've been thinking. Your band has a CD coming out, yes?"

"Yes." Teru nodded, failing to see the connection.

"And no staff, am I right?"

"Not right now, no…"

"So, perfect!" She flashed him again with her perfectly imperfect smile, and for a moment he was almost able to forget everything that had happened since the moment he had first seen her standing there, in the lobby of Rock Maykan, brandishing his bracelet as though it were a trophy, or a treasure… "Perfect," she repeated. "I have Sundays off; you usually play on Sundays. I'm not busy, and I'd be going to your shows anyway. So… all I need is a new wardrobe, and you've got yourself a staff girl. Take me to Marui One?"

Teru's heart did a miniature somersault. Marui One… the _visual kei_ department store. Seven floors of nearly nothing but visual, punk, and gothic fashion. It was the perfect place for Kiyomi to buy what she wanted… but there was nowhere in Tokyo – nowhere in the _country_ – where Teru was more likely to be recognized, and no better time for it than a Sunday afternoon.

"I don't know…" He stared at his salad, unsure of what kind of answer to make. It wasn't that he didn't want to go; he hadn't been to Marui One in ages, actually, and while he couldn't really afford anything, it was never a bad idea to see what was in style. It wasn't that he didn't want to go with Kiyomi, either – she had more experience and more people skills than their last staff girl had had, and with a few new clothes and a little makeup, she would look the part. But it was dangerous. La Rose Verboten was more popular now than they had ever been, and for Teru to take a girl to Marui One in the middle of a Sunday afternoon…. "I might be recognized," he explained. "If anyone asks… I can't tell them you're my date, even my friend. But if they see you at the staff table at our next show…" He knew that he would give in. It shouldn't have been so easy; he knew that Yuu wouldn't like it. As far as the fans were concerned, all visual band members were single and straight, and therefore available. Too much of the business depended on that image to risk it…

_But I am single. She isn't my girlfriend… She'll be staff. And Rei…_

Rei hadn't liked Kiyomi, but that hardly mattered now. She was here, she was willing to help, and Rei was… _Gone. It doesn't matter._ There wasn't any choice to be made, really. Kiyomi was right. They were going to need someone to sell their CDs, to collect their _enquetes_ and hand out flyers. She was here, she was capable and available – there was no choice. "Okay." Teru forced a smile. "Okay, let's go."

When their plates were cleaned and their bill paid – Kiyomi let Teru pay for her, though not without making a show of protesting first – they headed back into the crowd, finding their way this time into a stream of people moving south, in the direction of Marui One. The building was visible from several blocks away, a blue cube adorned with fluttering sale signs and posters, all in stark, gothic black and white. Teru dropped Kiyomi's hand, then, with a mumbled apology, but she only smiled in response and continued to make a beeline for the door.

The first floor was consumed by the total chaos of an early summer sale, huge bins of self-proclaimed "Spring and Summer Bargains" that differed from the new fall collections only in the ratio of gauze to satin and of mesh to canvas. It was all black, it was all expensive, and apparently, in the suddenly wide and childish eyes of Kiyomi, it was all wonderful. Teru didn't know why it surprised him, really. She'd always dressed like this during high school, though most of her clothes back then had been handmade or inexpensive, purchased from friends or from the small collection of specialty shops in Niigata. Tokyo had given her a bit of fashion sense, taught her to dress the way society expected her to, and to do so well. But the girl that she had been – that girl who longed for darkness, for a dangerous and exotic sense of beauty on the stages of Sanjo, of Niigata, of Tokyo – that girl was not gone, and here she was in her element. It was at once charming, and a little disappointing. Some things never changed.

"What do you think of this?" She pulled a dress off the nearest rack and held it up to her chest, letting the skirt brush against the tops of her shoes. It was sleeveless, with buckles and faux leather straps that would, when properly fastened, highlight the slender curve of her arms. Though the front of the dress was quite modest, the back was low and open. It was sexy, it was daring… and the thought of Kiyomi wearing it, in front of his bandmates and his fans and whoever else happened to walk through the door of the live house… Teru blushed. He didn't want to share her, though he knew that she wasn't really his to share.

"I don't know." Teru shrugged. "It's a little… I mean… there are lots of shops upstairs too. Why don't you… look around a little more?"

Kiyomi returned the dress with a giggle. "In other words, it's too sexy and probably way too small anyway." She let out a little sigh. "Not me, is it? Okay, let's keep looking, then. The jewelry's in the back, right?"

The corner of the first floor that had not been overrun by sale items was, indeed, home to a small jewelry shop that, until today, Teru had barely noticed. Kiyomi ran a finger down the edge of the display case as she walked, taking in each piece with a glance, but it was primarily a men's jewelry shop, and while she might have been more than willing to dress for her role as La Rose's staff, Teru was a little relieved to see that she had no interest in wearing handfuls of chunky rings and piles of men's necklaces like some of the girls did. "Not me!" she proclaimed again, with a smile. "But this, Teru… this would look wonderful on you!"

She plucked a necklace from a display and held it against his neck so that he could see himself in the shop mirror. "What do you think?"

Teru had intended to say something, to make some empty comment about how lovely it was but he couldn't afford it right now, but when he bothered to actually look at the piece, the words dried up in his mouth. It was perfect. Hideous, but perfect. The chain was unremarkable enough, thick steel links just like half of the chains in the shop, and three-fourths of the ones he saw on stage. But the pendant… he had never seen anything like it.

"What is it?" He took the necklace out of her hand and held it up to the light, but it still didn't look like anything he had seen before. It had wings, maybe, bat wings or demon wings, spidery and membranous, but everything else was… obscured. "It's trapped…" he whispered. Whatever it was, the artist had portrayed it in a state of agony, some mythical creature struggling to break free of its bonds. He wasn't entirely sure what the message here was supposed to be, what thoughts could possibly have inspired such a beautiful and terrible piece of art… but he knew that he had to have it.

"How much is it?"

"That one… um, that one is twenty thousand, sir." He had barely noticed the salesgirl, though she had been standing behind them for most of the exchange. "It's one of a kind. The artist has designed all sorts of jewelry and costumes for the stage..." And she rattled off a list of band names, some of which were better-known than others. But Teru had only heard one thing, and his heart fell. _Twenty thousand_. There was no way.

"Ah… I'll, um, I'll think about it." He smiled and handed the necklace to the clerk with a twinge of regret. He would never see anything like it again, and though he tried to tell himself that it was nothing more than a hunk of steel on a chain… it was perfect, somehow. It would have been perfect onstage, perfect for the next photo shoot… but he couldn't spare that much money, not for something like this.

"Isn't it perfect? It would look so good with your costume!" Kiyomi whispered excitedly in his ear as they stepped onto the escalator to the second floor.

Teru shook his head. "Not for twenty thousand. It was gorgeous, but…"

Kiyomi bit her lip, and Teru forced himself to smile at her. He didn't want her to feel bad. She couldn't have known how expensive the necklace was, and she couldn't have known that the money in his wallet wouldn't have paid for half of it.

Her eyes met his, and she rearranged her face immediately into a matching smile. "Ah, well… It wasn't meant to be. I'm sorry for even mentioning it… we were shopping for me, now, weren't we?" If her laugh sounded a little forced, Teru assumed that it was guilt, and made a point of laughing in reply.

He accompanied her faithfully into shop after shop, watching as she tried on everything from leather pants to lace-trimmed Victorian gowns. When at last she had decided on a look for herself, Teru helped her select a slightly more modern-looking skirt and three corset-style tops to go with it, pointing out that the simple black skirt that she was currently wearing would also work with any of the tops.

She paid for her purchases with a credit card, signing away in an instant an amount of money that Teru had not spent on any other than his rent and his taxes in years. He felt a twinge of jealousy stab at his heart, but forced himself to smile, to ignore it. She had worked hard for what she had, and he had chosen his lifestyle as well. There wasn't any reason to begrudge her a little shopping spree, though he couldn't help thinking of the necklace downstairs, and the insignificantly slim possibility that it would still be there two or three paydays down the road.

"Ready?" Teru picked up the shopping bags without asking; if he couldn't pay for her shopping like some guys would, at least he could be a gentleman when it came to this. "Let's go."

"Excuse me?" The sales clerk called out to them as they turned to leave, and both Teru and Kiyomi turned to face her. Teru was sure that they had forgotten something, or made a mistake with the credit card slip – but as it turned out, it had nothing to with the sale at all. "Um… excuse me for asking, sir." The clerk blushed. "But… are you the singer from La Rose Verboten? I'm – I'm a huge fan."

Teru felt a hot flush color his own face then, a mixture of embarrassment and pride. "Y – yeah," he managed to mumble. "Um, thanks."

"I – I can't wait for the new single." The girl stammered, then, seeming to remember where she was, she bowed. "Thank you very much for your business!"

"Thank you." Teru and Kiyomi echoed in unison, and all three of them started to laugh.

"That was nice of you, to carry my bags." Kiyomi leaned in to thank him when the clerk was out of earshot. "And being recognized wasn't too bad, was it?"

"No. Not really."

"Do you have to go?" She stole a glance at her wristwatch: it was nearly three o'clock. "I don't want to keep you if you're busy, but…"

Teru shook his head. "I'm not busy. What is it?"

"Well…" Kiyomi bit her lip again. "How do you feel about CD shopping?" She dropped her voice to an excited whisper. "I want to see the promo posters for your new single!"

If she had caught him on any other day, Teru thought, he would have said no. It was bad enough to be here, in Marui One, surrounded by hundreds of girls who had probably, at some point, seen him on stage. It was another matter entirely to make the trek to Like an Edison, where his own face would be plastered all over the store in advertisement of the forthcoming single. There would be no question of being recognized. But today, for whatever reason, Teru found that he simply didn't care. "Sure," he answered, smiling when she stared back at him is surprise. "Why the hell not?"

Kiyomi either didn't notice his choice of language or didn't care; she simply smiled and patted him lightly on the shoulder. "Okay. I'm going to go to the restroom, then. Wait for me outside?"

"Sure." Now that the subject had been brought up, Teru found that he, too, was curious about the promotional materials that Yuu had put together for the single. There hadn't been time for a photo shoot, and no one had really had the money for it either, so any pictures of the band would be leftovers from the last shoot they did with Bara. Rei or one of his connections had designed the album cover, and Teru had seen that… but he didn't really know how the single was being promoted, and it was a strange feeling. It seemed like he should have been there for that, that he must have seen something at one of the band meetings… _But I've been so damn preoccupied lately. How did I ever think he was good for me?_

But even as he thought those things, Teru knew that he didn't mean them. He missed Rei, and if he was dreading anything about CD shopping with Kiyomi, it was only that he would be reminded of what he had lost, what he was trying desperately to avoid thinking about… And until that moment, he had almost been succeeding.

"Sorry!" Kiyomi's cheery voice burst its way into his thoughts, and he was ashamed to realize that the beginnings of tears had stung the corners of his eyes. "Sorry to keep you waiting." But there was little apology in her voice, and when she took his hand again and forcibly closed it around her own, he understood why. He opened his fist slowly, not doubting what he would find there but afraid, somehow, to look.

It was a bat, or a demon, or maybe an angel, struggling to escape from its own personal hell, frozen forever in an artist's rendition in steel.

"Kiyomi, I can't." Teru shook his head, offering the necklace back to her. It was beautiful, but he couldn't let her do this for him. She was too good for him; it wasn't right.

"You have to take it now." Her eyes met his with a question that she was kind enough not to put into words. "Store policy – no returns. Consider it payment for the bracelet."

"That bracelet was cheap, Kiyomi… I can't take this."

She shook her head, and taking his hand firmly in hers, began to lead toward the indies CD shop, Like an Edison. She wasn't going to take it back, he knew, and he would take it, and wear it… but he would feel guilty when he did. She was too good for him. If only she knew what he had done…

"Kiyomi, I…" Teru didn't know what he meant to say. He wanted to tell her everything; he wanted to start again from scratch. He had had a good time today, but he knew, somehow, that she had had a better one. And enough of him still wanted to help Rei, if he could – to love him, if that was what it took, or just to be there for him when he thought, he _knew_ that no one else was. _I can't be with you, Kiyomi. God, I want to. But you don't need me, and he does. _It was what he should have said, but he didn't. "I – I'm really glad that we did this. It was fun."

She squeezed his hand in reply. "Me too."

Like an Edison was well-known, but far enough off the beaten path that no one lingered there for long. It was a fairly small shop, but prestigious in its way – those who knew _visual kei_ shopped here, and those who didn't, didn't need to. On Sunday mornings, the store occasionally played host to CD signings and handshake events for some of the bigger names in the indies circuit, but if any events had been scheduled for today, they were long over by the time Teru and Kiyomi arrived. Two or three girls were browsing the shelves, one with her boyfriend in tow, but for a Sunday, they hadn't picked a bad time to come.

La Rose weren't quite big enough to merit poster space in the front window, but as soon as he entered the shop, Teru was greeted by an image of himself, an old photo that had been blown up and worked into the middle of a large, dark poster taped to the counter beneath the cash register. The name of the single – it sent the tiniest of shivers up his spine to see it – and the release date were written prominently in the lower right corner, and more specific information about making a reservation had been hand-written next to it by the shop's staff.

"Wow," Kiyomi whispered, and if Teru hadn't been keenly aware of the stares of the two employees behind the counter, he may have echoed her sentiment. This made it real. He was here, in one of the best-known _visual kei_ shops in Tokyo, looking at his own picture, front and center on a full-color poster in the front of the shop. It was like a dream. And it was all thanks to Rei.

His heart skipped a beat, or threw in an extra one – he wasn't sure which. All that mattered was that he was here, he had made it this far at least… and it hurt. It hurt.

"Kiyomi… I'm sorry… I…" He almost explained. He almost apologized, in the middle of the shop, with a poster on the counter behind him to announce his name and the name of his band to anyone who did not already know.

But then he saw something, or imagined he did, out of the corner of his eye. His heart skipped another beat, this time rising to his throat and throwing his eyes open wide. "Rei?"

"What?" Kiyomi shook her head in confusion. "Are you all right? Teru?"

"I'm sorry…" Shaking his had free of hers, Teru ran out into the street. It was Rei. He had seen Rei, he was sure of it… how could he not be? "Rei?" But of course he wouldn't answer. He didn't want to see Teru, but Teru wanted to see him, and the longing that he had been suppressing all morning came rushing in a flood of pain. "Rei… I'm sorry. Talk to me!"

But the flash of blue and silver and black that he was sure had been Rei was gone. It was impossible… Where could he go? Where could he run, when he could barely walk? Teru hated himself for the thought, but it was true. He must be here somewhere, he must!

But the streets were deserted.

He stood there, in shock, for what might have been a minute or an hour, until Kiyomi burst out of the shop, staring at him as though he had come from another planet. "Teru?"

He let out a deep breath, and whatever had panicked her must have vanished from his face, for she ran to him and embraced him with a fragile, terrified smile. "What's wrong? You… you scared me, for a minute."

"It's nothing." He shook his head. "It's nothing." His voice grew stronger: it _had_ been nothing, after all. Just a figment of his imagination, and Kiyomi was real. "I thought I saw someone I knew, that's all."

"Rei?" Kiyomi's voice was half teasing, half trembling as she asked. "A girl? A girlfriend?"

"No." Teru shook his head. "Just… a fellow musician. Someone I used to know."

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**Notes:**

Again, all of the shops in this chapter really exist, and I don't own them. For the record, Marui One is no longer actually located in the blue building described in this chapter (in case anyone decides to come visit me and take the Sakikaeru tour of Tokyo? LOL) but at the time of this story, everything was approximately as I've described it.

I mentioned before that the story was about half over... but I have since reworked my outline, it might actually be a little longer than I had planned. So, maybe NOW it's half over?

As always, thanks for readign and reviewing. I always love to hear what you think of this story, whether it's completely positive or not. Please do let me know what you think!


	21. tsugunai

**Acknowledgements:** As always, thanks to Musique et Amour for betaing, and to all readers, reviewers, squee-ers, etc.

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**Chapter 21 – tsugunai -penance-**

It began, as it always did, with the words.

A name, a place, and a date: innocent characters scrawled on a yellowing label in the elegant hand that once had been his own. He read them, now, until they were meaningless: words and numbers reduced to sound, to a mantra of self-loathing and regret.

This was what he had destroyed.

It had been too much, to hope for forgiveness, for love. He had taken too much from the world and paid little enough in return. This face, this body, and now this new and terrible pain that came from somewhere no doctor could touch… they were no more than the fate that he had wrought with his own hands.

_I killed you._

He said it first to the tape, to the name and the place and the date and the hand in which they were written. And then he said it to the faces, to the eyes and the smiles – to the music, that slumbered forever within.

He said it to himself. _I killed you._ He said it to the voice that spilled in laughter from his ghost-self's throat, to the smile that spread evenly and beautifully across features he had sacrificed long ago. If only they had been payment enough.

And then he said it to the others, one at a time. He said it to the music, and he said it to the crowd. He said it to the year and the month and the day, to the night and the people and the era that he had single-handedly brought to an end.

And then he froze the image, and he said it to the only one that mattered.

_I killed you._

The pain coursed though his body, and he relished it. Just another form of penance, another reminder of what he had done.

_I killed you._

The tears came now, and he did not fight them – for they, too, were pain, and nothing more than he deserved.

_I killed you._

The face on the screen was smiling, but it accused him all the same.

_I killed you._

_I killed you._

_I killed you._


	22. yume no hakaba

**Acknowledgements and Dedication:** Thanks to Musique et Amour for betaing andto all of my readers and reviewers! I always love to hear what you think. This chapter is dedicated to the marvelous maccha…. The first RL friend to read any of my writing in at least ten years. Thanks for the comments!

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**Chapter 22 – yume no hakaba -graveyard of dreams-**

The following Sunday was a beginning, in more ways than one. Kiyomi's first day as staff coincided nicely with the release of the new single, and the new drummer – whose name was Nao, and who was, at nineteen, a far more accomplished player than Teru had been – had managed to learn enough songs to put together a decent set. It should have been an exciting night – the beginning of a new era for the band.

But it was hard for Teru not to see it as an end. Although he had never seen Rei at the live house, had never spoken to him or even heard his voice during a show, he had always been there. He had known that, when the lights went down and the building was evacuated, there would be a place for him to go and a fair, if not always favorable, criticism of his performance. He realised now exactly how much he had come to look forward to those… lessons? Dates? Whatever they were. And if tonight was the beginning of an era, Teru couldn't help but think of that era as a dark one, a lonely one. An era without Rei.

His voice had been off during rehearsal. No one else seemed to have noticed; it wasn't that he wasn't hitting the notes or anything. Maybe, to the others, it didn't even sound bad. But the lyrics were meaningless without Rei to sing them to, and the melodies were sad, or violent, or hateful. They echoed what he was feeling so perfectly that Teru felt that he had nothing to give to them in return. They were complete without him, and he was just an empty vessel through which they flowed.

He sat through lunch with a vacant smile on his face. Kiyomi sat beside him, squeezing his arm intermittently at what may have been appropriate times; Teru wasn't really listening to the conversation. The others had turned their attention to Nao, asking questions about his old band, his musical influences. They'd been through all of this before, during the previous week's rehearsal, but everything had happened so quickly. None of them really knew him well, and Teru was grateful for that. It meant that he didn't have to talk, that he didn't have to answer any questions, and that no one really noticed that he wasn't as excited about the show as he should have been. As much as he loved center stage, Teru had to admit that it was nice, sometimes, not to be the center of attention.

Nao had been born in Yokohama, not too far from where Kiyomi worked, and they ended up talking about the city for awhile. Nao recommended something in the area – a restaurant or a bar, maybe? Teru hadn't really been paying attention. Yasu asked about school: Nao had barely graduated high school and was studying at the ESP Musical Academy in Takadanobaba. Teru nodded at this and joined the others in complimenting the school, though he had never met one of its students before and didn't really know if it was any good or not. Yuu asked about stage experience: they'd known that Nao had played in a band called Cinderella, and it turned out that that had been his first, excepting one-time gigs at high school culture festivals.

And then someone – Yuu, maybe, or Seika? – asked how he had found La Rose, and Teru found himself interested at last.

Nao was a short, stocky man with a slim waist and the broad drummer's shoulders that Teru had somehow never developed. His face was not unattractive – high cheekbones, thin lips, deep brown eyes with long lashes, all framed by long straight hair that had been parted down the middle, bleached to platinum blonde on one side and left jet-black on the other.. Definitely not unattractive, but decidedly masculine, with a wide chin and square jaw that gave him an appearance of strength. It was not a face that Teru would have expected to see clouded by doubt, but a flicker of uncertainty passed over it then, and Nao hesitated before answering.

"I – I really don't know." He shrugged. "Don't guess it matters – I'm here now! But, yeah, it was really strange…."

"Strange?" Yuu raised an eyebrow. "You didn't see the flyer, then?"

Nao shook his head, and a shock of blonde hair fell across his eyes. "No, I got your phone number off the flyer, yeah? But it wasn't from a live house or anything… someone sent it to me."

Teru shook his arm from Kiyomi's grasp and sat upright in his chair. _Someone sent it?_ That sounded too much like what had happened to Bara… _Rei?_

"Who… who sent it to you, Nao?" Five pairs of eyes stared at him in shock from around the table, and Teru didn't need them to tell him why. The question had been desperate, and he hadn't meant it to come out that way. "Sorry… I mean, if you know. I think we owe him a favor."

Nao shrugged. "I thought it was you guys… you know, one of you saw me play with Cinderella or something? The band's mailing address was just my apartment… thought you got it off one of the flyers." He glanced around the table. "But… you didn't, did you?"

"No." Yuu's voice was soft, but not especially concerned. "But as you said… does it matter now?"

Teru cleared his throat. There was one more thing that he had to ask, and the answer _did_ matter, more than he wanted to admit. It made sense, of course, that Rei was involved in other projects. La Rose was not his band, not his life. But the thought that he might have other protégés…

"So," he began, fighting the accusatory tone that he could feel lurking beneath the surface of the word. "Nao. Have you played here before? At – at Rock Maykan I mean. Are you… I mean do you…" The question died halfway out of his mouth; he had not bothered to think of a plausible reason to be asking it.

"Yeah." The drummer shrugged, and his eyes met Teru's for a flash of a second. "This was our home base… Cinderella, I mean. We played here once, twice a month at least. Why?"

Teru let out a breath that he didn't know he'd been holding. It was true, then. It was true… but the look in Nao's eyes had confirmed something else… _He doesn't know it._ Rei might have seen Nao play, but Teru was almost certain that Nao had never seen Rei. A terrible hope swelled in his chest at the thought, followed immediately by a twinge of nausea. _Stupid._ His fingernails cut tiny ridges into his palm as he willed physical pain to take away the pain of memory, of self-hatred and humiliation. _That was before. That was before…_

"Why?" Yasu laughed. "Teru gets starstruck whenever we play here, that's all. Doesn't seem to realize that the rest of the world doesn't get all worked up because Toshi spent twenty minutes on that stage twenty years ago. Take it as a compliment. He's just worried about us."

Teru laughed in spite of himself. It wasn't a very funny joke to begin with, and was made less so by virtue of being true… but at the moment, with all that he had seen and heard and done in the past however many weeks, the nerves of a country boy straight off the train and onto the stage of his high school fantasies seemed almost enviable. They were nothing compared to the nerves he felt now, at the thought of playing on that stage… that stage that belonged, in Teru's mind at least, completely and exclusively to Rei.

Rehearsal was still in progress when they returned to the live house. In order to get all of the equipment onto the stage in the right order, the first band to play that evening would be the last to rehearse, and vice versa. La Rose was the one with the new single – it gave them the right to play last. It was both a blessing and a curse, Teru reflected bitterly. There was no doubt that it was good for business: people came late, or chose to linger after their favorite band had left the stage, but hardly anyone came early. But it also meant a long time between rehearsal and the real set – a long time in which makeup could run, in which voices and fingers would undoubtedly fall out of practice. And it was a long time to wonder… was Rei here? Was he watching? Or was he gone for good? Teru did not know which he wished for. He didn't know which would be worse.

"Teru?" Kiyomi had taken his hand again as they left the restaurant, but she released it now at the bottom of the steps leading down into the lobby of the live house. "I'm going to get the staff table ready." She gestured to a long folding table, under which two cardboard boxes full of CDs and a collection of hand-drawn posters had been haphazardly stacked that morning. "Let me know if you need anything, okay?" She smiled her sly little smile, but Teru wasn't sure that the smile he gave her in return was anything other than a tired fabrication.

"Okay!" Yuu's tone was all business, and Teru and his bandmates listened with all of the attention they would have given a teacher or a boss. From here on out, it was all business – tonight more than ever – and they knew it. "You guys know what you're doing, and if you don't by now… well, it's too late, so you better do a good job of faking it. We go on at 8:30. It's a good time slot, but you know the drill… no leaving the live house, no playing around. No one sees you in makeup before the show. You want something, you send Kiyomi." He nodded at her, then, and she flashed them an agreeable smile in reply. "Thanks for recruiting her, by the way." He glanced briefly at Teru. "Okay, you don't have to get changed right away, just be ready by 8:30. Let's sell some CDs!"

The informal meeting came to an informal close, as Yuu turned his attention to Kiyomi and the stacks of CD singles that she had already begun to arrange on the table. That was the real focus of the evening, after all. They'd make a little money from ticket sales… but it was CD sales that could make or break a band at this stage, and all of them knew it. _No pressure, _Teru remarked to himself with a grim smile.

Seika and Yasu knew one of the guys playing in the second band that night, and they left to watch him rehearse, dragging Nao along with them. "Coming with us, Teru?" Seika gave him a pointed look, and Teru's face grew hot. He hadn't forgotten their conversation after rehearsal that night; Seika knew more about his relationship with Rei than anyone… what must he look like now, holding onto Kiyomi like a lovesick puppy?

"Uh… no. No thanks." Teru stared at the tip of his boot, unwilling to meet his friends' eyes. "I'm going to get changed, start on my makeup. Before… before the dressing room gets crowded, you know?"

He didn't wait for a response. The dressing room would already be crowded, he knew – but that didn't have anything to do with his decision. He needed to change his clothes, he needed to be ready to sing… maybe that would change something. Maybe all he needed to do was to _look _beautiful, and strong, and confident. Maybe looking the part would, at least for tonight, make it true.

It did help, a little. Teru would not allow his hand to shake as he applied his eyeliner perfectly, evenly: a thick line on each upper eyelid, slightly thinner ones on the bottom. Lines that turned down slightly at the corners, giving him a permanent mournful expression that was supposed to match the mood of the music, the mood of visual kei – lines that had not been designed to reflect what was in Teru's heart, but which managed to do so anyway. Purple lipstick transformed his thin, unremarkable lips into plump, kissable ones, and a smear of glitter across one eye and down onto his cheek gave him the requisite element of cuteness that some of the girls would be looking for. He applied his mascara last, with fingers that were almost calm, thoroughly satisfied with what they had done, and a set of round, flirtatious eyes blinked back at him when he was done.

It was nice, sometimes, to be someone he was not.

The rehearsal that the others had been watching came to an end; the band filed into the dressing room, laying their instruments against the far wall and searching for a place at the mirror to put the finishing touches on their hair and makeup. Teru stood up, offering one of them his seat. He wasn't going to be able to kill any more time here. But he didn't want to go back into the hall, either. If Rei was here.… It was silly to even think about it, really. Of course he wasn't. But if he was….

_He watches from the balcony… He'll see me, if he's there, and I won't be able to see him. It isn't fucking fair... _Teru clenched his eyes shut, as though that would somehow erase the image of Rei, the image of his face… the memory of the expression on it, when Teru had turned and run away… Of course he wouldn't be here, but if he were… _I can't go back to the hall._

There were two ancient, sagging sofas in the next room, and Teru made his way to one of them, picking through the litter of instruments and equipment on the floor until he found a place to sit, to stare at the wall and think his way through the set, the way that he had done so many times before. He could see the curtain fall away, could hear his own voice announce… what? _Only the name of the song, tonight._ He would talk to the crowd later, but tonight they would launch right into their first song – one of the old ones, that Bara had sung, and Teru was grateful for that. It wouldn't be so bad, maybe. He would look up at the balcony and it would be empty, and when it came time to sing Rei's songs… He would get through it, somehow. He would have to.

In his mind, the song came to an end, and it was time to speak. _Good evening, Meguro. We're La Rose Verboten! _It was the way he always started. Then, something about the CD? Was Yami no Hanabira second, or third? Teru didn't have the set list yet, but someone must have written it down.

"Yuu?" He pushed his way through the forest of instrument cases again, and stuck his head through door to the dressing room. Nao was sitting at the long table, watching himself intently in the mirror as Seika, behind him, applied some sort of gel to his long, two-toned hair. Yuu and Yasu, however, were nowhere in sight. "Hey, Seika? Have you seen Yuu?"

Seika shook his head, then pulled a row of bobby pins from his mouth to answer. "Not for awhile. I'll get to your hair in just a second, 'kay?"

"Whenever. We have time." Teru shook his head, grinning. "Do you have the set list for tonight?"

"Not yet…" Seika reached for a bottle of hairspray.

"I think Yuu asked Kiyomi to write it up." Nao offered. "She's upstairs, if you wanna ask."

Teru nodded. "Okay. Thanks!"

"Let me know when you want you me to turn that pink mess into something respectable!" Seika called after him. Teru couldn't help but laugh a little – but, remembering what Seika knew, and what had happened since then, he wasn't necessarily looking forward to his date with the hairspray.

He found Kiyomi seated at the staff table, writing the last of a stack of five set lists in bold, clear script that would be easily visible from across the stage. She looked up at him with a smile, gesturing toward the completed lists with her free hand. "Take one!" she offered. "And let the others know that they're done, if you've got a minute?"

"Thanks, Kiyomi." Teru picked up the stack, waiting until she had finished to receive the last one, and turned to go back downstairs. This wasn't the hall, and the staff tables wouldn't be visible from the balcony… but it had felt a lot safer on the sofa, with a handful of guitars and two or three snare drums to protect him from whatever lay beyond the door.

"Oh, wait! Teru!"

Kiyomi grinned sheepishly at him. "Sorry. This is stupid… but there was something I wanted to show you. Have you ever, ahhh… used the restroom, here?" She blushed a little as she asked.

"I don't think so…" He shrugged. "No idea."

"You'd know it if you'd seen it. Come on!" Kiyomi held out her hand, and Teru took it almost without thinking, grateful that the live house wasn't open to customers yet. She led him into the hall, where the final band was still rehearsing, but to his relief, they passed under the balcony and through a heavy door on the far side, which he supposed led to the restrooms.

Teru didn't know what he was expecting – the only impression he had ever had of live house bathrooms was negative. They tended to be dirty, small, out of toilet paper… but sometimes there were posters, announcements of future events. Maybe it was a poster, or maybe it was something silly: a blacklight, or a weird paint job. Kiyomi seemed like she might just be the kind of girl to get excited over that kind of thing.

What she had wanted to show him, however, turned out to be not the restrooms themselves, but the stairwell leading down to them. It was only graffiti, really – anywhere else, it would have made the place look dirty, poorly maintained, old. But this graffiti was the product of twenty years of music, of fandom… the legends of Rock Maykan were all here, inscribed on its walls in Sharpie and Posca and good old-fashioned ballpoint pen. X was here, in a dozen exclamations of love for the music, the members, the wonderful cult following that it had been, in the beginning, and the nationwide phenomena that it had been in the end. Luna Sea was here, too – someone loved Shinya, someone else loved Sugizo, and here was a large block of text proclaiming obsession with the band as a whole, signed by a grand total of six girls who had contributed to its writing. There were indies bands here too – some that Teru knew, and some that he did not…

"Here it is!" Kiyomi pointed to a smaller inscription, near the bottom of the stairs. This one was new, from the looks of it. Teru squinted, squatting down to make out the message, written in tiny letters between odes to Glay and L'ArcenCiel. "La Rose Verboten," he read, and laughed aloud.

"And look, they wrote 'Teru' too!" Kiyomi smiled proudly. "You're a part of the stairwell at Meguro Rock Maykan, Teru. You're a part of _visual kei_ history!"

Teru laughed again. It was true, there were a lot of famous names on these walls. But there were also a lot of indies bands that no one had ever heard of before. Still, it was nice to know that he had a fan…

"Oooh, Teru, did you see this one?" Kiyomi pointed to another inscription, this one large and multicolored, incorporating drawings as well as names and song lyrics. Teru didn't need to read it to know what it was: the drawing in the middle was a pink spider with butterfly wings. There was only one visual musician who would be associated with such a thing…

"hide…" he whispered. The death of the guitarist from X Japan had shaken the world of _visual kei_, had claimed the lives of several of his fans in suicide, and had deeply affected Teru. He supposed that it must have affected Kiyomi, too, for she bent to read the inscription along with him. It wasn't anything unusual: a name, a date of birth and a date of death, the picture, and a quote: "Mata haru ni aimashou."

_Let's meet again in the spring._

But hide had died in the spring, hadn't he? Over two years ago, now…

There were more memorial messages, and as Teru scanned the wall, he found them easier and easier to pick out. Not all of them were for hide – there was Kami of Malice Mizer, dead last year of a brain aneurism; Hizumi of Madeth Gray'll, killed in a car crash on the way to hide's funeral. And there were others as well, names that he's heard before and names that he hadn't. Some may have been lamenting only the breakup of a band, but others were quite specifically for deaths. Teru caught himself holding his breath. He'd never realised how many…

"It's terrible, isn't it?" Kiyomi spoke in a whisper.

Teru didn't answer. He couldn't. The epitaph beneath his fingers wasn't the biggest, or the boldest, or the most well-done. It was older than the others, older even than hide's, though that wasn't what made it stand out. To anyone else, it may have meant nothing at all. It was an epitaph to a name lost to history, lost in the memory of the past five years – an epitaph not for an individual, but for an entire band.

**AETERNUM**

**Janurary 8th, 1995.**

**Gone but never forgotten.**

**Rei**

**Saki**

**Mako**

**Taka**

**Iroha**

Teru read the names to himself, then found himself whispering them aloud. "Rei."

Next to him, Kiyomi drew a deep breath. "Oh, wow… Teru, I…" Her voice fell to a shocked whisper. "Is this Rei? Is this who you...? Oh my god… Rei's _dead?_"

Teru shook his head. "I don't…" He cleared his throat. "I don't know." It was only barely a lie. Teru didn't know exactly what had happened that night, but in a way… maybe Rei _had _died.

_Five years…_ It seemed like a long time. Five years ago, Teru had been in his first year of high school… but this inscription said January. He had still been in junior high, then. It seemed like a long time… but it hadn't been enough to heal Rei's body, and it hadn't been enough to heal his soul. _And maybe I could have helped… but I ran._

"Never mind, Kiyomi." Teru took her hand again, but his own hands had gone cold, and the voice that came from his mouth didn't sound like his own. "They're probably letting people in by now. Let's… let's go."

He left her at the staff table and escaped back into the dressing room – but it wasn't much of a comfort anymore. He'd known what had happened to Rei… but seeing it on the wall, like that. What had Kiyomi said? _A part of history. _That made it real, and it made what Teru had done a thousand times worse. He wondered if he could even sing the songs, now… now that he had seen where they came from. An entire band… their music, their lyrics, the world that they had created on stage… wiped from the world in a single, stupid moment. It wasn't fair.

But maybe it wasn't too late. Maybe he'd lost his chance with Rei, and maybe Rei had lost his chance at happiness. But it wasn't too late for the music. The music could still be reborn, and whether it was fair or not, Teru supposed that it was his job to give birth to it. So he would wait, and then he would sing, and if it didn't manage to wipe the guilt away… well, it was no more than he deserved.

"Teru?"

"Yeah?" Teru jumped. He'd been lost in his own little world all night. "Sorry, Yasu. What is it?"

"Hey, are you alright?" The smile faded from his friend's face. "You've been acting... weird, lately. But, at least it looks like she forgave you, right?"

"Huh? Oh, Kiyomi… yeah. Just like you said."

Yasu gave him a critical look, but shrugged, apparently satisfied that Teru wasn't going to keel over and die. "As long as you're feeling okay, man. Anyway… Sorry, I came to ask you about the uchiage. You in?"

"Uchiage?" It made sense, of course, to go out and celebrate the release of the single. But if anyone had mentioned it earlier, Teru supposed that he hadn't been paying attention. "Um… don't we have that Shoxx interview tomorrow?"

"Yeah. But everyone expects an uchiage when a new CD comes out." Yasu laughed. "We'll all be in the same boat. And it's just an interview, no photo shoot. You in?"

"Sure." Teru sighed. He wouldn't be going to Rei's tonight – maybe it would be better to go _somewhere,_ instead of sitting at home and dwelling on the fact. "Sure, why not? I'm in."

"Good." Yasu picked up Teru's cell phone from the couch beside him and looked at the time. "Yuu already put your name on the list. And we're on in forty minutes, by the way."

"Thanks." Teru took the phone back and followed his friend into the dressing room proper. If there was anything wrong with his hair or makeup, he wasn't going to have a lot of time to fix it.

But his image in the mirror was that of a star. Kiyomi had been right – the necklace went perfectly with his costume. It was like a missing piece of a puzzle that he had somehow managed not to miss until now. It made his image complete – but its weight around his neck seemed ten times the weight of the little bit of steel he had held in his hand in Marui One. If Rei was here… He wasn't, of course, but if he was… _He'll see it. He'll see it, and he'll know._ Teru's hand strayed to the clasp. He'd wear it later, the next time he took Kiyomi out… but not now. Not on stage. It was too dangerous…

"Teru, what are you doing?"

He looked up to see Yuu standing behind him in the mirror, his guitar case in one hand and a case full of effect pedals in the other. "You look fine. It's time to go on. Ten minutes to get our stuff set up – you know the drill."

"Uh… yeah." Teru gave the closest thing to a smile that he could. "Just adjusting it, that's all. I'm ready, now."

And despite everything, he was. The crowd had been kept waiting; they were impatient and excited, and apparently felt no qualms about showing it, rushing up to the stage as soon as the curtain was flung aside, and shouting the names of their favorite band members at the tops of their lungs. A ripple of excitement ran through the crowd when Nao took the stage, and Teru gauged the reaction as an overwhelmingly positive one. In the looks department, at least, they had made the right choice. And the music…

Yuu had picked a heavier number with a fast tempo for the first song, and the selection proved to be a good one. Although Teru still felt a little more comfortable singing the ballads, he knew that he had improved a lot. Rei had helped him with the staging for this one too… and though he felt a twinge when he thought of it, the memory also proved to be an unexpected well of energy. There was more than a little hatred there – for himself, for Rei, for the fate that had brought them together. It all came out now, and the crowd picked up on it, headbanging and throwing themselves at the stage as though their lives depended on it. For Teru, the song was therapy, and when it was finished, he felt as though he had relieved himself of a little of his burden.

"Good evening, Meguro!" he cried. "We're La Rose Verboten!" This was answered with a cheer, and from that point on, the crowd hung on Teru's every word. Every mention of the CD, of new songs or future gigs was met with cheers and screams, and when at last he announced the title of the next song – the single, Yami no Hanabira – a hundred voices erupted into the biggest cheer of all.

He sang it well, and if there were tears in his eyes when it was over, he could easily have ascribed them to happiness. "It's wonderful to be singing for a crowd like this." He looked at the balcony, then, and though no one would have known it, he spoke for a moment to the figure that may or may not have been waiting there, beyond the glare of the spotlight. "You're my inspiration. Thanks." And then Nao launched into the intro of the next song, and the world was music again.

The last song came to an end, and Teru breathed a heavy sigh of relief. It was over. It had gone well – not flawlessly, but well, and he had spent enough time on the other side of the curtain to know that no one was going to notice that his breathing had been off during the second chorus, or that Yasu had leapt into the twin guitar solo a little later than he should have. They had been small enough mistakes – the energy in the room would have all but erased them. Yuu was smiling; Nao took a well-deserved swig of the beer that had been waiting behind the drum set for this very moment. It had gone well. And now it was time to sell the CDs.

"Okay, guys! That was great. Let's clean up and get out to the lobby as soon as we can." Yuu's smile grew even wider. "They're waiting for us!"

And they were. Though the curtains had closed and the elevator music that filled the hall between sets had started up again, the crowd was not ready to let La Rose leave the stage just yet. "Encore! Encore!" A handful of voices begun the chant, and dozens picked it up. "Encore! Encore!" A fluttering of the curtain indicated that those in the front row had not left, that they were waiting for their encore and would continue to wait until they got it.

Teru's heart soared, but his face fell. "Yuu…" he hissed under his breath. "We don't have an encore, do we?"

Yuu looked thoughtful for a moment. "We can play one of the old songs again…" He glanced at Nao. "Or if you're okay with the new one….?"

Teru felt all of the color drain out of his face. The new one… Rei's new one. "Phoenix," it was called. Teru had looked up the English word, and he knew what it meant: _fushicho, _a bird who would die, only to be reborn again in flames. Even with that definition, the title had meant nothing to him… but now, maybe it did. He didn't know if he could sing it here, now… "Wh – what do you think, Nao?" He would let the drummer decide.

"Okay." Nao nodded. "Let's try it."

Yuu nodded to the girl who was working the curtains, and she pulled them open again. The spotlight spilled into Teru's eyes… If only he could see beyond it. If only he knew for sure that Rei wasn't there, that Rei wouldn't hear him sing tonight. He thought that he could do it, if only he knew that much. But he didn't know, and not knowing wouldn't stop the others, as they launched into the intro that no one in the audience had heard before.

The screams were incredible, and Teru took them for a blessing – no one would really hear the way his voice trembled where it should have soared, the way he stumbled over lyrics like "Only ash remains/To mark the place where once your smile shone." He held the microphone in front of his face like a shield, like he had that first night, when Rei had reprimanded him for it… but with this song it worked. It was desperate enough, pitiful enough… and the crowd loved it.

_This is visual kei, after all. Who doesn't love a good tragedy?_

And then it was over, and Kiyomi was rushing onto the stage and pressing a cold beer into his hand. He wanted to kiss her, for that. The only thing he needed more than a beer was a cigarette, and he'd get that soon enough, just as soon as they got everything off the stage and into the dressing room again. It was over. It was over. And if one beer wasn't enough to wash the guilt of the last song away… well, they would be drinking until morning, and there were stronger things than beer in the world.

"I'm sorry, Teru, I have to run!" Kiyomi gave his hand a squeeze. "I'll see you guys in the lobby?"

Yuu stopped mopping his face with a towel for long enough to give her a smile. "Just as soon as we get this stuff cleaned up."

It didn't take long; Teru didn't have any equipment of his own, and Nao only had his drumsticks and the snare, so the two of them were able to help the others. The crowd in the lobby gave another cheer as the five of them emerged together from the dressing room below.

"It was a brilliant show!"

"You guys are my new favorite band!"

"I brought my sister tonight, too!"

There were a hundred faces, and a hundred different comments. Some of them were familiar – girls who had been following the band since what Teru supposed would come to be referred to as the "Bara era." Others were new, and full of questions about the band's history and past releases.

"Will you sign my CD?" A black marker and a copy of the single were thrust under Teru's nose, and he looked at them for a spilt second in wonder.

"Um… yeah, sure." He wrote his name with a trembling flourish, wishing in vain that he had thought to practice giving autographs, and the owner of the CD giggled as he returned it to her.

"Thank you!" She rushed to the other side of the room, where her friend was waiting, and began to chatter rapidly, pointing at both Teru and the CD as she did so. He wished for a moment that he could hear what she was saying, but in the second that it took him to consider it, another CD and another pen had been offered to him, and there were more signatures to be given, more compliments to be accepted and, as always, more questions to be answered.

The Rock Maykan staff were his salvation – they, too, needed to clean up for the night, and at ten o'clock they came through the lobby with brooms and dustpans and stern looks on their faces, telling the girls to take their conversations outside. They would wait, of course, and there would be more of them to deal with at the uchiage – but for the moment, Teru was grateful for the reprieve. He leaned against the wall with a sigh. "Well… we did it."

"We did." Yasu grinned. "Nice job on that last song, by the way. It's a killer."

"More of a killer for you guys than for me." Teru shrugged. "Thanks, though. It was a good show."

"How many CDs did we sell, Kiyomi?" Yuu picked up the remaining stack of CDs, which had shrunk considerably during the course of the evening. "Not too bad, it looks like?"

Kiyomi glanced under the table. "Most of the first box is gone. Over fifty, I'd say."

"Wow." Teru let out another breath. "Nice work, guys. Nice work, Kiyomi."

He caught her trying to stifle a yawn; it had been a long day for her, as well. "It was a good day. Now… to drink until dawn!"

"Not with your faces like that, I hope?" Seika laughed, fixing his bandmates with a mothering look. "Pimples, boys… all that greasepaint _cannot_ be good for your skin!"

"Makeup off, then, and equipment in the van." Yuu had already begun to attack his own face with a pack of makeup remover sheets. "Our reservations are for eleven, but as long as one or two of us make it there on time, the rest can follow."

"Okay." Teru nodded. "I'm going to go to the restroom before we leave, okay?"

Yuu was already halfway down the stairs. "Just be out by eleven." The rest of his bandmates followed their leader into the dressing room, leaving Teru and Kiyomi alone.

Kiyomi said nothing as Teru re-entered the hall. Maybe she thought that he really needed to use the restroom; maybe she thought that he was going back to read the graffiti on the walls. But he didn't intend to do either.

The stage at Rock Maykan wasn't especially low, but it wasn't high enough that it couldn't be scaled from the audience. Teru rested his hands on the edge of the stage and hoisted himself up, as though he were climbing out of a swimming pool. If anyone asked, he would tell them he'd forgotten something on stage. He even made a show of looking behind the house amps, getting down on his hands and knees as though looking for a fallen piece of jewelry, or maybe a contact lens. But he wasn't really looking at the floor, or the equipment, or even out into the hall. Tonight, he had eyes only for the balcony. He had to know, if Rei was there, and he had to know if he wasn't. Either way would be a relief; either way would be a disappointment. But either way, he had to know.

"Rei." The name fell like an apology from his lips. "Rei."

"You did well tonight, Teru."

"Rei?" Teru stood up at once, scanning the balcony, the house… "Where are you?" And then he saw, or thought he did – a shadow in the balcony that might have been a man. "Rei?"

"You did well tonight," Rei's voice repeated, though the shadow did not move. "Nao was a good choice."

"Was he your choice, Rei?"

"Does it matter?"

No. It didn't, not really. "Why are you helping me?"

A sigh… or maybe only the illusion of one: "I have given you my music, Teru. I have invested everything that I have in you… your music, your future. Is it wrong to work toward my own success?"

Teru's heart fell. "No."

"Then listen well. I will only say this once. You made a mistake tonight, Teru. Can you tell me what it was?"

Teru shook his head.

"No? Listen to me, Teru. If you think you will succeed with music alone, you are gravely mistaken. _Visual kei_ is about image. That is what separates the success stories from the failures, and you spoiled it tonight. You shouldn't have given those autographs. You shouldn't have been friendly with your fans. They are _fans_, Teru. They must not be allowed to think that they are more."

"That isn't my decision. Yuu's the leader."

The reply was late in coming, and for a moment Teru was afraid that it would not come, that Rei had decided at last to abandon him for good. "It is your decision now," he said at last, and his voice was cold. "Tonight was the last time. Oh, yes… and one more thing."

"What is it?" Teru heard his own voice grow chill in response.

"Your fans are not idiots, Teru. If you continue to parade your girlfriend around in front of them – with or without a staff pass – they_ will_ figure it out."

Anger swelled up in him then, burning through his body and coloring the world a bitter red. "She isn't my girlfriend! It's none of your business!" The words sounded childish, and that made him angrier still. "How dare you?" he cried. "How… dare… ? Rei? Please… she isn't… you have to understand!"

But Rei said no more. Teru sat on the stage for awhile then, staring up at the balcony, then out into the hall. It was strange, to be here when everyone had gone. It might have been peaceful, were it not for the anger still coursing through his blood like molten iron. _Fuck him._ He kicked at a stray cable._ It's none of his fucking business. _But even his own words couldn't really convince him.

He might have sat there for ten minutes or thirty, the makeup on his face running off in greasy rivulets of sweat and tears under what remained of the stage lights. The elevator music droned on into infinity, and he may have sat there for just as long, had the girl not interrupted him.

She was Rock Maykan staff – an unremarkable woman of about thirty, maybe a little on the older side to be working in a place like this, but not unheard of. Her face was broad and plain, and her figure was, if anything, squat and boxy. But there was something pretty about her eyes, and something haunting in her smile – both gentle and sad, as she told him in a soft, even voice: "He's gone, you know."

Teru started. "Wh – what are you talking about?" Someone at the live house had to know about Rei, of course – it would be silly to assume otherwise, when he sat in the VIP balcony every night. But whatever had happened between them, he didn't want to betray any of Rei's secrets to anyone who didn't already know.

"There's…" The girl glanced up at the balcony, as though wanting to make sure that Rei really was gone before she said what she was going to say. "There's an employee entrance, in the back. We let him use it. He's gone." She looked thoughtful for a moment, then added: "I don't think he really wants to see you right now."

"No shit…" Teru swore under his breath. "Okay. Thanks. I get the hint. I'll go now."

The girl looked at him again, then looked away quickly as though she were embarrassed to look him in the eye. "I… I shouldn't say anything," she whispered. "But… he's really… changed, since he met you. I don't know what happened between you, but… he really needs someone in his life. Just… just think about that, okay?"

"O – okay…" Teru slid off the stage and took a few steps for the door. "Do you… you know him, then? Rei?"

"You know his name."

Teru wasn't sure if it was supposed to be a question or not, but he nodded. "Yes."

"Then…" The girl ran up to him and pressed a tiny piece of paper into his hand. It looked like it might be a business card, but it had been folded so many times that he couldn't read anything that was written on it. "I'm Chizuru," she whispered. "I'll… I hope I see you again?"

* * *

**Notes:** As always, all of the locations for this story are real. The stairwell of graffiti is real, and it really does have memorial messages for deceased musicians on it… but the individual inscriptions mentioned here are made-up by yours truly. Hide, Kami, and Hizumi were real people, and their stories here are accurate to the best of my knowledge. 

The hide quote is from his song "Hurry Go Round." I suppose translation is mine, but that quote has been translated a hundred times before.

Regarding timelines and characters' ages: Japanese high schools have only three years (would be 10th through 12th grade in the States). So if you're curious but don't want to do the math, if Teru and Kiyomi started high school in April 1995, they're around 20 or 21 years old now, and Rei is….a little older.

As far as vocabulary… you all remember that an uchiage is a drinking party after the show, right? Next chapter!


	23. kamikuzu

**Acknowledgements:** This chapter was guest-beta-ed by the marvelous stargazerlily. Thanks to all of my readers and reviewers as well, and sorry to keep you waiting.

* * *

**Chapter 23: kamikuzu -scraps of paper-**

Teru stared blankly at the girl, feeling as though he ought to say something, but without a single coherent thought that could be put to words. She met his eyes for a moment – looking for something? – but he never knew what she saw there. She only nodded and, without a word, fled at a half-run through the closest door, returning to her work as though she had never spoken to Teru, had never even noticed he was there.

She had left him alone with the card, and for a moment his finger brushed against the edge of the fold, considered opening it, exposing its secrets. But then he glanced up at the balcony, and he couldn't. Rei was gone. The girl – Chizuru – had said as much, and Teru had no reason to doubt her. Even so… he didn't want to open the card – not yet, not here. What if it was from Rei?

Then again… what if it wasn't?

Teru shoved the piece of paper in his pocket. This was stupid. He was wasting time, and the others would be nearly ready to go by now. He took a deep breath, stealing one last look at the empty balcony as he did so.

He opened the door, crossed the lobby, and began to make his way down the stairs to the dressing room. The little piece of paper was a boulder in his pocket; he was painfully aware of its presence, of the unfamiliar bit of pressure against his hip that should have been negligible.

He had to think of something – anything but Rei, anything but the note – and so he began to count the steps as he ran. _One, two, three, four…._

_It can't be from Rei._ The unwanted thought interrupted the flow of numbers._ He said what he wanted to say. He…_

_Seven, eight, nine…._

_But maybe…_ It was a tiny flare of hope, or dread._ Something he couldn't say…_

_Eleven, twelve, thirteen…_

And then he was there, in that room where he had first sang for the mysterious voice, though he hadn't known it at the time, and there were eyebrow pencils and tubs of foundation and a hundred little triangles of foam to be sorted, to be placed into his makeup case one at a time. _Brown next to black, red next to brown…_ There had never been any order to Teru's cosmetics before that night, but at the moment, it seemed of the utmost importance that they be sorted, placed into the little compartments in an arrangement that made as much sense as anything could at the moment.

He had to stop thinking about it. He had to calm down. The night was still young, and the show wasn't over yet.

"You almost ready?" A hand clapped him on the shoulder, and Teru jumped.

"Wh – ? Uh, yeah…" He tried to smile at Yasu in the mirror, but it came out as more of a grimace. "Just, uh, just let me change…"

The makeup case closed with a satisfying click, and Teru tossed it into his black duffel bag along with the rest of his discarded bits of costume. He replaced his mesh top with a clean, skintight T-shirt, and attempted to run a brush through the mess of styling product that had formerly been his hair. It wasn't going to look brilliant, but he had to give his hands something to do, had to give his mind something to think about. If he didn't, he would hear that voice again, and he didn't want to hear what it had to say.

_You made a mistake tonight… Your fans are not idiots… Is it wrong to work toward my own success?_

"Done!" Teru said it as much to the voice in his head as to his bandmates, and his voice was louder than he had intended it to be. The others turned to stare at him, and he grinned sheepishly at them in reply.

"Teru?" Yasu looked concerned, but Teru was all smiles. It was over now. They were leaving this place, and he was going to have fun tonight if it killed him.

"I'm ready. Let's go!"

His friend laughed. "Like that? You're not going to take your makeup off?"

Teru glanced at his reflection in the mirror and felt his face grow hot. "Um… do I have to?"

"Not if you don't care about your pores, love…" Seika had removed his own makeup and donned a pair of dark sunglasses in its place, but his trademark blue-black boa was still around his shoulders, and he waved it admonishingly in Teru's direction. But his voice was kind when he added, "I can wait for you, if you want."

"Uh… no thanks." Teru shook his head. "I think I'll just stay like this… give the fans what they want, right?"

Seika shrugged. "Suit yourself. Shall we go, boys?"

The others nodded and, groaning half in jest as they toted the final load of bags and costumes and instrument cases up two flights of stairs, they made their way out of the live house and into the muggy summer night. The van that they had rented for the evening was waiting for them at the curb, its rear doors thrown open and its hazards blinking furiously in an effort to deny any parking violation.

"Alright, guys, everything in the van!" Yuu placed his own bag carefully on top of the boxes of CDs before calling out to a group of girls who lingered outside the doors to the live house: "Are any of you waiting for the uchiage?"

A few of the girls nodded to him, and one of them called out in reply: "Are we the only ones?"

Seika took over from there, wrapping his boa around the girl's shoulders and making a show of pulling her away from her friend. "Well, you're the only ones with a special escort," he purred. The girl squealed in delight and ran back to her friends, who laughed and proceeded to pull her back across the sidewalk toward the van.

Teru was the last to throw his bag into the back of the van, and Yuu closed the doors behind him. "You know the place, right?" Four heads nodded in unison. "Okay, I'm going to take the car around to that 24-hour garage. Take these girls with you, alright?"

"Not a problem." Seika wrapped his boa around a second girl's shoulders, and Teru laughed a little in spite of himself. If Rei's voice hadn't quite stopped echoing in his head, at least it was being given a run for its money by Seika's mock flirtation and the excited chatter of the girls.

"So who did you girls come to see tonight?" Yasu ventured, and the girl who had been first to wear the boa bit her lip in a show of embarrassment. "Not you!" she exclaimed. "But we really liked your set. I bought your CD! But we came to see Faria." She blushed.

"Are they coming to the uchiage?"

"No!" The third girl, who hadn't yet been mock-molested by Seika, cried out. "We came to the show for them, but we're going to the uchiage for you!"

Teru smiled. "Well, we're going to have to show these girls a good time, then!" He fell into showman mode so easily, and it felt good. It was something, at least, to keep his mind occupied.

By the time they reached the izakaya, all seven of them were laughing, and Teru was almost sad to see the three girls head to the far side of the room, where the fans were sitting, while he and his bandmates seated themselves along one side of a long table closer to the door. He could see Kiyomi – she was sitting with the staff girls for the other bands at one end of the closer of the two fans' tables, but to his relief she seemed completely immersed in conversation with the other girls: she didn't even look his way when the band entered the room.

Beer was waiting for them; the singer from one of the other bands poured, and when Yuu ran through the door a few minutes later, the party began in earnest. It seemed to have been decided unanimously that La Rose would make the toast, being the highest-grossing band of the evening and also the one with the new single to celebrate, but Teru hadn't expected all eyes to turn to him as they did, in expectation.

"Teru should do it!" Yuu voiced what the others must have been thinking, thrusting a bottle of beer into his hand and gesturing to the end of the table. "It's all thanks to him… we never could have done it without his – voice."

Teru didn't miss the moment of hesitation before the final word. _My voice, yeah…. It's not ME they couldn't have done it without, it's Rei._ But he smiled graciously at his friend and declined the offer as politely as he knew how. "You're the leader, Yuu…. And I've already had one beer – who knows what I might say?"

The others laughed, and Teru knew that his attempt at humor had paid off. In a matter of seconds, Yuu was standing at the head of the table with a bottle in one hand and his own glass in the other. "What a night!" he began, and was greeted with a cheer. "It's always a pleasure to play with such a great group of bands, and for such a great audience. _Kampai!_"

"_Kampai!_" Teru raised his glass, allowing it to touch as many of the others as possible before the guys holding them pulled away, making their rounds of the room to toast the staff girls and fans alike. Yasu pulled Teru to his feet and they tiptoed their way across a minefield of bags and beer bottles and seat cushions to the fans' table, where they were given a warm reception and a round of refills before retreating at last to the comparatively quiet musicians' table by the door.

Uchiages always started like this, with the musicians on one side of the room and the fans on the other, and usually Teru was glad. It gave the girls a chance to unwind, and it gave the band members a chance to go over the evening's show, count the income from the tickets and figure out how much of it was going to go toward their drinks, and to read any comments that had been written on their _enquetes_ as a group. Tonight, however, he found it hard to concentrate, and almost wished for the excitement and laughter of the girls' table across the room.

As usual, he didn't have much to contribute to the "meeting": Yuu had the business side of things under control, and Teru was really the only original member who didn't have a hand in the songwriting. _I'm just another pretty face,_ Teru berated himself as he reached for a plate of daikon salad. _Without him, I'm nothing._

But he wasn't supposed to think about that, and so he turned his attention to the food and the beer and the snatches of conversation that floated over from the fans' table. A girl that he recognized as a La Rose fan was showing Kiyomi a folder full of promotional photos, and at the other end of the table, he heard bits of an animated conversation about ticket prices and fan club discounts. He would much rather have been a part of that conversation at the moment.

It didn't make sense. Uchiages were good for business – everyone knew that. It made the girls happy, and Teru didn't mind going out with his fans either. He didn't understand why Rei didn't want him to do things like this, and as he downed his third beer and watched the world grow gradually fuzzier, he told himself that he just didn't care.

If it had been anyone other than Rei, he might have been able to convince himself.

Empty beer glasses and overflowing ashtrays began to crowd the table, and the night gave way, nominally at least, to the following morning. Teru didn't know how many beers he had had, but every time the waitress came around, he asked her for another one, and finished them all. _Fuck you, Rei._ He repeated the words to himself until he almost meant them. _I'm going to drink myself into oblivion and then I won't care about you anymore._ But the more he drank, the clearer the memory seemed to become. The voice in his head grew louder and colder, but the words didn't change, and the faces across the room – those beautiful faces of youth and freedom and femininity – didn't grow any more attractive, or any more attainable.

There was only one face that he wanted to see right now.

"Hey, Yasu?" Teru sounded drunk, his words slurred and fuzzy around the edges, but his mind was still clear enough to be embarrassed by the fact. "I'm, uh, I'm gonna go to the… the restroom. Okay?"

"Sure, man. Whatever you want." Yasu laughed, and when Teru stumbled to his feet he only laughed harder. "Try not to fall on your face, okay?"

"Yeah. Yeah." It sounded better the second time around, and to Teru's surprise, he was able to walk a straight line across the edge of the tatami mats and to the row of wooden slippers waiting at the entrance to the room. _Fuck you, Rei._ He repeated the words in his mind like a mantra. _Won't even let me get drunk…_

"Teru!" He heard his name and spun around, but the girl who had called out to him wasn't anyone he knew.

"Hang on just a second, okay? I'll be right back." He smiled back at her, and the girl seemed satisfied with that. He would do it, too… He would go back and really spend some time with his fans – whatever Rei happened to think about the issue, it would get them back into the live house, and it would get them in back line to buy the next CD.

_Dammit._ The door swung shut behind him, and he leaned against the bathroom wall, closing his eyes and bending his knees until it seemed as though he was about to collapse onto the floor. _I can't stop thinking about him. I can't stop loving him, and I can't stop hating him, and I can't… I can't… _"Rei." He whispered the name, and it sounded like a sob. _What the fuck am I supposed to do?_

He drew the piece of paper from his pocket with a ragged sigh. _Is this what you wanted?_ But it was only a piece of paper, and if it had any answers for him, they would be inside. He worked his finger into the fold and slid it open; the card unveiled itself with a touch, a tiny and beautiful work of origami. He smoothed it out against the tiled restroom wall and turned it over with a knot in his heart.

_What abuse do you have for me now, Rei? Why won't you leave me alone?_

But the message, when he saw it, managed only to fill him with a different sort of rage. It wasn't even a message – wasn't from Rei at all. _Stupid._ His knees gave way beneath him and he crumpled to the floor at last, clenching the piece of paper in one trembling fist. _Stupid!_ He punched the floor, and while the pain in his heart did not diminish, a new one flared across his knuckles and brought tears of pain to his eyes. _Stupid!_

He opened the card and forced himself to read it again. It was nothing. The girl's name, Chizuru Sakata, and a phone number. That was it.

And how had he ever thought otherwise? Rei had made it abundantly clear that their relationship was purely professional. He heard the words again and again in his head: _Is it wrong to work toward my own success?_ Red fury clouded his vision, and before he had really thought about it the little card was between his fingers, right in front of his eyes and he shuddered with anger and relief as it turned from one scrap of nothing into two, four, eight, a million, until no one could ever have pieced the thing back together – until there was no reminder, no evidence that he had ever spoken to the girl that night, or that he had ever spoken to Rei.

Anger gave him strength; he stood and made his way calmly, purposefully, to the nearest stall. The pieces spiraled down the toilet like a whirlpool of jagged white guilt, and when it was over, Teru fell back against the wall and took a deep breath. It was the only thing he could do. He was just a singer, but this was _visual kei _– and that meant that he had to be an actor too. The show must go on.

He left the restroom and stepped back into the hallway, only to be surrounded immediately by voices and laughter and smiling faces that should have been the perfect backdrop to the role he was expected to play:

"When are you going to come see us?" A girl smiled brightly, flirtatiously, and batted her eyelashes at him.

"The table in the corner, okay?" Another smile, another laugh. "Promise?"

"We want to play with your hair!"

And then another voice, this one more familiar, but no less clouded by drink and fatigue. "Where _were_ you!" Kiyomi stumbled out of the line for the ladies' room, her face a mix of excitement and anger. "I thought you _left_!"

Teru blinked. "I, um… I've been right here, Kiyomi. Are – are you okay?"

"I'm drunk!" she admitted gleefully, falling backwards to rest her head against Teru's shoulder. A few of the other girls snickered, but Teru didn't see what was so funny. _What are you doing, Kiyomi? Not here… not in front of my fans…_

But she didn't seem to get the message. "Come on," she whispered in his ear. "Come on, Masato…"

Teru flinched at the use of his given name, though the lack of reaction from the other girls suggested that they hadn't heard. "Ki – Kiyomi!" He gripped her wrist with a little more force than he had intended, and she cried out. "Dammit – I'm sorry, but you need to sit down. Have some water, some orange juice… Have you eaten anything?"

"I don't want to sit down." Kiyomi pouted. "I want to have fun! This is a party, isn't it?"

"Y – yes…. Yes it is… And, we need to get back to the party, okay?"

"Okay."

"Good." Teru let out a sigh of relief. "Good. Let's go back to the party."

Kiyomi took a few steps in the direction of the party room, letting Teru lead her as far as the doorway and the slightly diminished row of slippers. "Come on," he pleaded with her. "Take off your slippers."

"Masato…" She leaned in close, and whispered his name in his ear. She smelled good… like flowers, and also like a live house… sweat and cigarettes and beer… and flowers. It wasn't bad….

Teru shook his head. He shouldn't be thinking about that right now. He had to get Kiyomi back to her table, back to her friends… He had to sober her up, somehow, before she said something she shouldn't. "Come on," he urged again.

"No, Masato!" She raised her voice a little this time, and Teru put a finger to her lips. He hated that name. Kiyomi and Yasu were the only ones in this room who knew it, and he knew that the fans would never hear it from Yasu. But Kiyomi… _Dammit. Maybe Rei was right…_

"Look, Kiyomi, you really need to calm down…"

"Come here!" She giggled and, with a sudden burst of strength that surprised Teru, pulled him away from the party room and into a side hallway. He strongly suspected that this particular bit of hallway, which contained a computer and a rack of empty but unwashed beer glasses, wasn't intended for customer use, but it didn't seem as though such an observation would mean anything to Kiyomi at the moment.

"What is it?" he asked her. His head was beginning to throb. "Look, just tell me, whatever it is, and we can go back to the party, right?"

"Okay." She giggled. "If you do one little thing for me, I promise to go back and be good."

Teru sighed. "What is it?"

She leaned close, her eyes sparkling with mischief. "Are you sure you want to know?"

"Yes." He rolled his eyes. "I'm sure!"

"Okay…" She leaned closer still, until he could feel her lips, nearly touching his ear. "Kiss me!" she whispered, and then pulled away.

Teru took a step back. "Kiyomi…"

"Please…" She pursed her lips in what could have been either a pucker or a pout. "You promised!"

"I can't," he protested. "Kiyomi, not here…"

And then her lips met his, and silenced him for good.

Her kiss was sweet and firm and teasing, dancing from one corner of his mouth to the other with delicious hints of what was to come. He found himself kissing her back, allowing himself to be pushed back against the row of beer glasses. She tempted him with her tongue, licking at his lips for a moment, only to retreat again without offering what she had allured to. She was good, and Teru responded to her reflexively. He wasn't exactly inexperienced, when it came to this level of intimacy at least, and his body responded with barely a consideration for his mind or his heart.

But then she plunged into his mouth at last, and his heart went cold.

"Stop." Teru pulled away. "Stop!"

"Wh – what?" Kiyomi looked bewildered and hurt. "What did I do?"

_You showed me what I should have known all along._

Kiyomi was a good kisser – he wasn't going to deny that, and he had to admit even to himself that she had, for a moment, elicited a genuine response. But it had been a purely physical response, a reaction – two sets of lips against one another, doing what they had trained themselves to do. It was nothing compared to those silly, selfish moments that he had had with Rei. Any thoughts of practice or technique had vanished, and there had only been the moment – two sets of lips taking what they wanted and giving everything in return. That was passion. That was love. And whether she had wanted to or not, Kiyomi had shown it to him in the back hallway of an izakaya, at two o'clock in the morning.

"I'm sorry." His lips were numb. "I can't do this with you… not here." He put an arm around her shoulder; tears were beginning to spill from the corners of her eyes. "Come on. Please, Kiyomi! Let's just go back to the party…. Please…"

To his relief, she nodded silently and allowed herself to be led back into the main room. She wasn't the only one who had had too much to drink, apparently – one of the girls who had walked with them from the station had fallen asleep in an uncomfortable-looking position against the far wall, and a boy with short purple hair lay sprawled between the musicians' table and the staff table. Around them, however, the party continued in full swing.

Teru led Kiyomi to the end of the table where, until about thirty minutes ago, he had been sitting with his bandmates. Yasu and Nao were still there, rifling through a pile of _enquetes_ together, but Yuu and Seika had made their way over to the fans' table and were talking animatedly with a group of girls whom Teru recognized as La Rose fans. This left two empty places at the table, and he guided Kiyomi to one of them.

"Excuse me!" He called out to a waiter. "Can we get an orange juice, please?"

"Sure." The waiter nodded, jotting down the order as he ran off to get the drink.

"Teru..."

_Well, at least she's got my name right this time._ "What is it, Kiyomi?"

"I'm… sleepy…" She rested her head on his shoulder. "Sleepy…"

Teru wanted more than anything just to push her away. This wasn't right. Whatever Rei had done to him… he deserved it. But Rei had done nothing to deserve this. Kiyomi's head was like a dead weight on his shoulder – he felt nothing. Nothing but the terrible, twisting guilt, and an alien desire that shouldn't have been desire at all.

_I want to see him._

It was the only answer, really. _Apologize, and then ignore it._ But Teru didn't want to ignore it. He wanted to look at that face, to gaze into those ancient, haunted eyes, to caress every inch of that poor, broken body… and he wanted to find it all beautiful.

_I HAVE to see him._

He had decided. He would have gotten up and left the izakaya then, if he'd been able to. But there was still Kiyomi, growing sleepier and sleepier on his shoulder. It would hurt her if he left her here, and he didn't think that he had the strength to do that, not yet.

"Okay, Kiyomi… let's drink some juice, okay?" He lifted the heavy glass to her lips, and to his relief she took it with her own hands and drank eagerly. "Is that better?"

"A little…"

"Okay. That's good." He tried not to let the terrible sense of urgency creep into his voice. He wanted to go now. He needed to make things right, somehow. But he couldn't let Kiyomi know that he was thinking of anything right now but her. "Why don't you lie down?" he suggested. "Here, you can take this cushion…" He offered her the cushion he had been sitting on, and she eagerly slid it beneath her head. There wasn't a lot of room on the floor for sleeping, but curled into a fetal position, she would be able to rest for a few hours.

"Teru…?"

"I'm here, Kiyomi." He patted her head hesitantly. "Just go to sleep, okay?"

"Feels… good…" She whispered, and then was silent.

When Teru was sure that she was asleep, he asked Nao and Yasu to look after her. "Look, I have to go…" He fished his phone out of his pocket and showed it to them as an excuse. "Something came up… er…. A friend needs my help." _At two-thirty in the morning, sure._ "Can you guys look after Kiyomi for me? If she wakes up… tell her I'll call her tomorrow, okay?" He wasn't sure if he intended to keep that promise or not, but at least he would have the rest of the night to decide.

"Sorry, guys." He shoved his feet into his boots, lingering only for a moment at the top of the stairs that would lead him down to the street and to Rei's apartment. "This is just something I have to do."


	24. saigo no himitsu

**Acknowledgements and Introductory Notes:** This chapter has been in the works for a long, long time and I apologize for keeping you all waiting! Special thanks to Stargazerlily and Honeybee (sparklyscorpion, the author of the fabulous Das Phantom Von Deutschland – read it now!) for beta-ing, idea-bouncing, and general support. Notes regarding content to follow…

* * *

**Chapter 24: saigo no himitsu the last secret**

The night was thick with blackness and humidity, the stars piercing through the sky like suspicious spotlights cast upon a stage that was moving in perpetual slow motion. Teru's shirt clung to his body as he walked, and his hair fell flat against the back of his neck as the last remnants of hairspray and mousse fought a losing battle with the combined forces of heat and nerves. He must have looked like shit.

He forced himself not to run, to put one foot in front of the other at a pace that was as steady and even as the pounding of a drum. Three in the morning wasn't really any better or worse than two-thirty; he would arrive when he arrived, and there was no question now of turning back. The desperation that had driven him out of the izakaya in the first place was joined now by a sense of calm certainty. He knew that this was the right decision to make, and this was possibly the only chance that he would have to make it, while he was just sober enough to know that what he was doing was completely insane, and just drunk enough to do it anyway.

Were it not for the footlights that illuminated the entrance to the building, it may have faded completely into the night. Not a light was on in any of the apartments, and the street was entirely deserted. But Teru could have found this place blindfolded, and he knew the steps to Rei's door as surely as he knew the steps to his own.

The door was shut tight, of course, and the windows were dark – though that didn't mean much when it came to Rei. Maybe he was asleep; maybe he had locked himself in the music room with that computer and a thousand angry chords. Teru didn't care. He crushed his hand into a fist and began to pound on the door. He didn't stop when no one answered; he didn't stop when the windows remained as dark and as motionless as they had always been. Rei was at home. He had to be. And Teru was going to see him, no matter what kind of a beating his knuckles had to take in the process.

"Rei!" He called out at last, when it seemed as though ten or fifteen minutes must have gone by, and the pain in his hand had given way to a strange and uncomfortable numbness. "Rei! It's me! It's Teru! Please… Dammit! Open the door! Rei!"

He continued to call out, until the words had faded into meaningless sound and his voice, exhausted already from the show and the encore, threatened to fail him. He shouted into the night, pounding on the door with one hand and ringing the doorbell over and over again with the other. He was sure that the neighbors would hear – how could they not? It was only a matter of time until someone would come and tell him to leave, and he would be forced to return to the uchiage with raw knuckles and vocal chords and nothing at all to show for it.

"Rei!" His final cry was ragged and hoarse, and when it, too, met with no reply, Teru stepped away from the door at last. He flexed his sore fingers, and they barely moved in response. It was useless. He could stand here until the sun came up, scream until his voice gave out for good, kick the door down, maybe, if he worked up enough of a rage… but if Rei didn't want to talk to him…

_There's nothing I can do._

He let out a sigh, and allowed his aching hand to fall defeated to his side. It was really over, then. Whatever he could have had with Rei, whatever they could have made together… he'd really thrown it away.

He stepped back from the door, trying to tell himself that it was pointless, that he should leave, that staying here all night wouldn't change a thing.

And then the total silence of the world was replaced by the turning of a deadbolt and a rush of stale, air-conditioned wind.

"What… do _you_ want?" Rei's voice was crisp and livid with anger, and it filled Teru with a strange mix of gratification and terror. He was more than a little scared – he was petrified by awe, and by fear. But at the same time, his heart swelled with hope at the sound of that voice. Rei had come, after all. There was still a chance.

"I – I want… to see you." Teru stumbled over the words. "I want to see you." It was a stupid thing to say – weak, pathetic – but he hadn't bothered to rehearse any lines, and he didn't want to recite any now. It was time to be honest, with Rei and with himself.

He allowed himself to look up, to take in the figure of the man he had come to see. Rei stood in the doorway, unmoving and silent, covered from head to toe in a long black hooded cloak. He had not bothered to tie the ribbon at the neck, and when a night breeze stirred through the apartment complex, Teru could see that, beneath the cloak, he was dressed only in a loose-fitting T-shirt and the same faded sweatpants he had worn before. It made him look… mortal, somehow, beneath the imposing façade he fought so hard to maintain. What little Teru could see of his face was set in a grim expression – the expression of a man who had just been woken up by someone he hadn't particularly wanted to see in the first place.

"You… wanted to see me?" Rei repeated the words as though they belonged to a language he had never heard before. "You wanted to see me? Here I am. I do sleep, on occasion, you know."

"No." Teru shook his head. It was now or never; he stepped into the doorway, and though Rei flinched a little, he didn't step away. "I want to see _you_."

He lifted his hand to the hood of the cloak, and now Rei pulled away. "No!" he hissed. "Don't touch me, Teru… just… just leave me alone."

"I'll close the door." He did it, without waiting for permission. "No one will see you, Rei… only me. Please. Let me look at you. Let me try!"

"You had your chance! You had..." His voice broke in a sob. "Why are you doing this, Teru? Leave me alone. I – I was foolish…"

"No, you weren't. Rei, look at me!" Teru waited – he would wait all night, if he had to – and when Rei finally raised his head to look at him with eyes that burned with hatred, he continued. "I was an idiot. Okay? I don't…" He bit his lip. "I'm sorry. I don't deserve another chance. I know that, but…" He lifted the edge of the hood again; Rei was wearing his mask, but he had removed his wig for the night, and Teru could see his eyes, his lips – the beautiful remnants of what he had once been – as clearly as ever. "You're beautiful, Rei."

"Don't lie to me!" His voice had abandoned its accusatory tone, and now it trembled along with his body. "You don't know who I am…"

"Show me." Teru touched the edges of the mask, and Rei flinched – but he didn't back away. That would have to be permission enough.

His stomach turned as he pulled the mask away, and for a moment he thought that he might really be sick. It was as bad as he remembered, and worse. But it was also Rei. He had to remember that: this was the man who had given him everything he had to give, this was the man who had taken a chance on him, when no one else had dared. This was someone who needed him, someone who had once been beautiful and… _Someone who still is. He is beautiful. He is!_

But he was not, not physically at least, and though Teru could lie to himself about it, he could not make himself believe the lie. "Rei…" he whispered. "I'm so sorry…" Whether he was apologizing for his own actions, or the actions of the world, or the terrible twist of fate that had led to all of it in the first place, he didn't know. But he was sorry; he meant that much and he said it, again and again. He was sorry – but he was willing to learn. He would look at that face everyday, until he could see it, touch it, kiss it, without wanting to turn away. The only thing that he wasn't willing to do was to lose Rei – but he knew very well that it might come to that anyway.

Rei's face was stone, fixed in an unchanging expression of shock and terror. He held the cloak closed at the neck, the untied ribbon trailing impotently between his fingers, which whitened at the knuckles as he clenched the fabric tightly with his fist. "Teru…" The name escaped from nearly-closed lips. "I don't… I can't…" He lowered his head, and his shoulders trembled as though he wept, though his eyes remained dry. "Come in?" he offered weakly, at last. "Just… come in."

Teru took his shoes off and followed Rei into the music room. The lights were on, and the room was a mess; CDs and MDs and pages and pages of printed scores lay in disarray all over the sofa and the coffee table. Rei said nothing, but simply allowed the cloak to fall from his shoulders and began, slowly and methodically, to pick up the pieces, one at a time.

Teru fell to his knees and began to help, picking up things that had fallen beneath the table or behind the sofa, in places that he knew would be difficult for Rei to reach. He said nothing, and Rei did not thank him, but together they cleared a place to sit, and a place to talk, and a place to reach an understanding.

Rei lowered himself slowly onto the sofa, and where Teru would have forced himself not to look, not to stare, not to feel anything for fear that he might feel pity – now he looked, and he would not let his eyes turn coward. He made them look, and he forced them to accept. _This is Rei. This is who I… care for._

"Is it… may I sit here?" Teru gestured to the empty space on the other end of the sofa.

"Please."

"Okay." He took a deep breath. "Wow… I don't… uh… Thank you?"

"For what? I have done nothing." Rei refused to meet Teru's eyes, turning his head – by choice or by habit – so that the damaged side of his face was turned away.

"You gave me everything." Teru raised a hesitant hand and placed it on Rei's shoulder. "Look at me, Rei. What's wrong? If there's anything I can do… I just don't want to lose you." It was partly the alcohol talking, but none of it was a lie. He was terrified right now – terrified of Rei, yes… but far more terrified of the idea of never seeing him again.

"Teru." Rei's voice was quiet, but hard as stone. "I am… moved. Flattered. Inspired, even, by your resolve. I chose you, and I do not regret that choice. But…" He closed his eyes and let out a long, shuddering breath. "I am sorry, Teru. I gave you my music. I made you my voice. But I can give you no more."

"Wh – what?" Teru didn't know what he had expected, but it wasn't this. He grasped desperately for words, for something – anything – to say. "No… Rei…."

"I am… sorry."

"No!" Teru pulled his hand from Rei's shoulder, as though the touch had somehow stung him. "Dammit, Rei… look at me!" He did, and Teru forced himself to hold that gaze… a gaze that, to his surprise, was hurt, miserable – but not at all angry. "I love you!" The words came out before he had a chance to think about them. "I… I barely even know you, but I can't stop thinking about you! Let me help you! Let me… please?"

"You… love me?" Rei blinked, visibly shocked. "How… how can you say that, Teru? If you… if only you knew…" He looked down at the lifeless fingers of his right hand, stroking them thoughtfully as though, by doing so, he could somehow restore them, make them whole and strong again. "If only you knew…"

"What?" Teru pulled Rei's hands apart and took them in his own – the strong and the broken, he held them as though they were the same. "If only I knew _what_?"

"You don't know what I did. You don't know who I am."

"What?" Teru was furious, frustrated; none of this made any sense. "Rei, I don't understand."

Rei tried to pull his hands away, but Teru was the stronger of the two, and not willing to give up yet. He lowered his face instead, an action born out of years of habit; if he'd been wearing a wig, Teru would not have been able to see the single, silent tear that trickled down his cheek.

"I…killed him."

"What?"

"I killed him…" Rei's voice shook, but it was loud enough this time that there could be no doubt as to what he had said. "S – Saki. I killed… Saki."

An awkward silence followed. Teru blinked, trying to force the words to make any kind of sense at all. "Rei… I – I'm trying to understand, but…" He furrowed his brow in confusion and concern. "Who – who's Saki?"

And then something clicked, and he understood. _Saki._ That had been one of the names on the wall… _Aeternum._

"He died in the accident…" Teru whispered, and another tear fell from Rei's eye. "Your bandmate?" Rei nodded. "Your friend…" _And more than that… it has to be…_ "Oh, Rei…"

"How. – how old are you, Teru?" Rei glanced up for a fraction of a second, and then looked away again. His eyes were old and tired, his voice flat and dull. "Never mind. If I am not yet twice your age, then I am rapidly approaching it. I love him, still. I am… too old…to love again."

Teru said nothing. He could think of nothing to say. He heard the words as Rei spoke them, could have repeated them verbatim, if he'd been asked – but they fell on him like dull, meaningless blows. _Saki. I killed him. I love him, still.._. Those weren't the pieces of a story – they were the pieces of a nightmare.

"I'm sorry." Rei shook his head and struggled, once more, to free his hands from Teru's grip. This time, Teru let him go. "I'm sorry. I'm sorry!" He was sobbing now, struggling to cover his face with his hand and shaking uncontrollably from head to toe. "I'm sorry!" He cried again, and was silent.

Teru did not dare to touch him, did not dare to draw closer. He did not want to know the answers to his questions, but he could think of nothing else to say. "Why?" he asked, and his voice was barely more than a breath of air. "Why are you sorry?"

"I killed him!" Rei lowered his hand, allowing Teru to see the ruin of his face, distorted further by pain and stained with tears. "I loved him, and I killed him… And if I love you, if I let myself love you, Teru…"

"You'll kill me too?" Teru snapped, his body suddenly taut with fury. "Is that what you're trying to tell me?"

"You don't want to be with me." Rei failed entirely to answer the question. "You don't…"

"Bullshit."

"Wh – what?"

"I said that's bullshit." Teru repeated. "How… how do you know what I want?"

Rei shook his head. "I'll hurt you…"

Teru shrugged. "People hurt people."

"I _killed_ him!"

Without thinking, Teru raised his hand to Rei's face and placed a single, silencing finger upon his perfect, beautiful lips. "Rei, listen to me. It wasn't your fault. It wasn't…" Teru had no idea if that was true or not, but I was the only thing that he could think of to say. "It wasn't your fault… it was an accident."

Rei nodded, silently, and Teru placed a hesitant arm around his shoulders. "Am I hurting you?" He hated to ask, and he knew that Rei hated to answer – but he didn't know, yet, how much he could do, how far he could go, physically or emotionally, without opening old wounds.

Rei shook his head, and though his eyes were miserable, he didn't seem to be in any physical pain.

"Okay." Teru lifted his finger from Rei's lips. "Now, talk to me?"

Rei shook his head. "I don't know if I can."

"Try." Teru ran his fingers across the short, patchy remains of hair, and Rei shuddered. How long, Teru wondered, had it been since anyone had just sat with him, and let him cry? "Try," he repeated. "Tell me about him… about Saki."

The name sounded strange and alien coming from his lips, and Rei shuddered visibly to hear it spoken aloud.

"I shouldn't have been driving…." He began, his voice as thin and dry as paper. "We had a fight… I was upset…"

"Okay…" Teru's fingers brushed against a twisted path of scar tissue, and Rei started. "Did I hurt you?"

Rei shook his head. "No."

"Okay. Okay." He didn't know what to say next. It was obvious that Rei wanted – _needed_ – to talk about what had happened, but it was also obvious that it hurt him to do so. And Teru, for his part, wasn't really sure that he wanted to hear. He was shocked, and maybe a little disappointed – not because Saki was dead, he realized with a twinge of disgust, but because he had existed in the first place.

"Tell me about Saki." He began again. "Tell me something good. What – what was he like?"

Rei's eyes met his, then, and they were full of questions. "Something… good?" He seemed to consider this. "Saki… Saki _was _good."

"He was your bandmate?"

"Guitarist." Rei choked on the word. "I wanted to tell you…"

"It's okay." Teru let his hand fall to Rei's lap, let their two sets of fingers intertwine and embrace. He squeezed, and Rei squeezed back, and it didn't really matter that he had run out of questions, or comments, or words.

"I think he would have liked you," Rei admitted thoughtfully. "You… you remind me of him, sometimes."

It was like a knife through Teru's heart. "I do?"

"Sometimes." Rei sighed. "But I don't… I don't think he would have come, tonight."

Teru wasn't sure if he was being given a compliment or not. It was bad enough, to know that he had been living in someone else's shadow… being held up to some impossible standard… If he was being compared to the ghost who had haunted their relationship unseen since the beginning, he thought he was being compared favorably – but he wished with all of his heart that there wasn't any need for comparison at all.

"I wonder, sometimes…" Teru was not sure if Rei was speaking to him, or to himself. "What would he think of me, now?"

"I… I don't know." Teru wished that he could think of something more encouraging to say, but the sheer magnitude of what Rei had confessed to him was just now beginning to seem real. It was bad enough to stand in the shadow of an ex… he'd been there before, and hated it. But if the ex was dead… forever perfect, frozen in time…

Teru had come here tonight to apologize; instead, he had seen his world turned upside down. Everything was different, now: every lyric that Rei had ever written, every glimmer of pain in his eyes… Every moment of the past few weeks – it seemed like it should have been years – was repainted in a new light, and Teru wasn't sure what he was seeing anymore.

There was nothing to be said. Teru had a thousand questions, but he didn't really want to hear the answers, not now, and so he simply sat there on the sofa, with his arms around Rei's shoulders as he cried, trying desperately to ignore the fact that the tears flowed continuously from his left eye, while the right remained red and almost entitrely dry.

"Rei…" Teru whispered his name now and again, desperate to break the silence with some kind of encouraging words. _I'm not going to leave you. Not this time._ But he couldn't bring himself to say it; he could only hope that his presence said as much, and that Rei understood it.

"How can you love me now?" Rei's voice was very small, and very tired. "How…?" His head fell to Teru's shoulder, and where Kiyomi's weight had been a burden, Rei's was a cross that Teru wanted to bear.

He elected not to answer the question; he hadn't had time to digest everything that had happened, and his head was swimming now with drink and confusion and fatigue. It had been a long day – for both of them, Teru guessed – and if he was going to take care of Rei, he could think of no better way to begin than by putting an end to this terrible conversation and seeing him safely to bed.

"Rei?" he ventured.

"Yes?"

Teru slipped his arm around Rei's too-thin waist. "Let me help you to bed. We can talk… we'll have time later, to talk about… everything."

"You won't… leave me?" It was half-question, half-accusation, but his eyes were full of fear.

"No." Teru shook his head. "Not if you don't want me to. But I think… I think we both need to sleep, okay? Just for awhile."

"Okay…" With Teru's help, Rei rose shakily to his feet. "You – you are right. It is too late."

Teru nodded. "Yeah… um, which one is the bedroom?" It felt good, to talk about stupid everyday things. "You're tired. I can help you?"

"Thank you, Teru…" Rei attempted to pull away, but Teru held him close, and his eyes grew wide, clouded with familiar pain. "No. Please… I can… I can do it alone."

"Okay." Teru released him, and they left the music room in single file, Rei leading the way to the nearer of the two unopened doors that led off of the main hallway. The knob turned easily and the door swung open.

"This is… where I sleep." Rei moved as though to press the light switch, to let Teru in, but his finger hovered for a second over the button, as erect with tension as the rest of his body and trembling in the remnants of light from the music room. "Please don't… don't say anything."

The room was flooded with light, and Teru stepped inside. What he saw made him want to cry. This room had not been built with sleeping in mind: it was larger than the music room and shaped oddly, with a kitchen and space for a table by the door, and a large open area at the far end. Had this apartment been inhabited by the family it had been intended for, this would have been the living room. Instead, it looked more like a hospital suite.

The kitchen counter was cluttered with a hundred bottles of pills, a thousand tubes of ointment and boxes and boxes of over-the-counter painkillers. If there was any food in the place, it must have been locked away in the refrigerator, an ancient monstrosity that didn't look as if it had been moved, or cleaned, in the ten years or so that must have passed since it was manufactured. Across from the counter, under a low-hanging light that should have illuminated a kitchen table, the shattered ruin of a guitar that Teru had seen on his first visit cluttered a sagging, dilapidated sofa, and in the corner, the slumbering form of a folded-up wheelchair lurked in the shadows.

Next to the sofa, a row of shelves held a spectrum of wigs that a small costume shop might have envied. The blue and the purple, in different lengths and cuts, as well as colors that Teru hadn't seen before: red, black, silver, and an orange that he privately thought would look terrible against Rei's pale skin. The masks were there too; Teru was shocked to see that there were no less than five of them, all crafted from the same liquid silver, all staring at him with empty eye holes that sent a shiver up his spine. Propped against a bedside table was the cane that Rei used when he went out, and on top of the table a tangle of metal and plastic that Teru recognized as the brace for his arm. There was also an alarm clock and a faded and battered music magazine – the only remnants of anything resembling a "normal" life.

The bed itself was a steel monster – probably a double in terms of size, but robbed of any luxuriousness it might have possessed by the sheer starkness of its frame, the cold mechanical parts that, Teru supposed, would allow the back, or the legs, or both to be raised with the press of a button. It was different from a hospital bed only in the absence of metal rails from the side – but it would still feel like a prison, he thought, to sleep in this room. To wake up every morning only to be confronted by the reality that you were trying to hard to avoid…

But he'd been asked not to say anything, and he didn't, though it was a challenge not to do so. Teru had wondered about this room, but being here raised as many questions as it answered. Rei didn't _need _all of this – did he? Teru hadn't really given it a lot of thought, and it was a little scary, now, to realize how little he knew about Rei… how little he knew about the hell that had been his life. The painkillers, the wheelchair, the terrible hospital bed… he had not imagined those things, when he had fantasized about Rei. Those thoughts had never crossed his mind at all.

And Saki… He had wondered about Rei's life, before the accident, but it had never occurred to him that there might be something worse than losing one's face, one's freedom. He had come here wanting to fix what he had broken… but Rei had been broken long ago, and by something much stronger than a moment of doubt in a love hotel. Teru hadn't broken his heart – he had simply ground the pieces into dust.

"Can – can I stay?" He asked at last, his voice a breathy whisper.

"I don't care." Rei tried to be apathetic, but the quaver in his voice betrayed him.

Teru nodded, and made his way slowly to the bed. It was soft enough, despite its appearance, and the simple act of sitting down reminded Teru of how very tired he was. "It's… nice," he commented weakly. "The bed."

"Teru?"

"What?"

Rei turned his eyes uneasily to the floor. "I have to… I have to take some medicine, before I sleep. I would prefer it if you… if you looked away."

Teru fixed him with a long stare. "You're okay?"

"Yes."

"Fine." Teru crawled beneath the light comforter and turned onto his stomach, so that he was facing the steel equivalent of a headboard. Within minutes, he felt the bed shift and grow a little less vast as Rei joined him under the covers. "Can I look at you now?"

"If you want to…"

Teru turned onto his side and looked at Rei, taking in his almost-perfect profile, marred at this angle only by the lack of a nose. It wasn't attractive, wasn't even remotely tolerable… but Teru could teach himself to tolerate it. Little by little, he would.

"Rei…" he whispered. "I'm so sorry."

Rei closed his eyes, and his voice when he spoke was slurred by exhaustion. "So am I."

* * *

**Notes:** Inquiring minds want to know… how many of you had actually figured it out? There should have been plenty of hints in previous chapters… but I was surprised at the lack of questions from readers when the hints were dropped!

And know that we know all about Saki… yes, the name of the story is a reference to the character. It's kind of a pun, or a play on words at least. The character for Saki can also be read "saku" (to bloom), and the verb "to come back to life" is "ikikaeru." The character was actually named before the story was – yes, this has been planned all along, but when it came time to actually write it… eh, it's a well-known fact that I have trouble writing the major scenes.

Um… I'm hoping that anything else you want to know is either evident in the story, or isn't SUPPOSED to be evident yet… so that's all the notes for now!


	25. kotae

**Acknowledgements:** Sorry to keep you all waiting! Thanks to stargazerlily for betaing, idea-bouncing, and dragging me to see the lifesize Sephiroth. (who definitely inspired slash-y thoughts!) Thanks as well to all of my readers and reviewers. This story has been around for a long time now, and I really appreciate those of you who are still reading!

* * *

**Chapter 25: kotae -answers-**

"Teru?"

"Mmph?" Teru rolled onto his stomach, burying his face in the pillow and pulling the comforter up to cover his head. "It's too early…"

He had dreamt something sad, something that had left him with a strange, empty feeling in this pit of his stomach, and the dream hadn't really let him sleep at all. What had it been about? A part of his mind struggled to remember, even as he told himself that it didn't really matter, that he could always sleep again.

Teru rolled onto his side, experimentally, and was relieved for a moment that his head didn't spin or throb or do any of the other unpleasant things that it was wont to do after a night of heavy drinking. Last night must not have been that bad, then. He had left the uchiage early, after all…

He opened his eyes slowly, carefully. Beside him, Rei was awake, staring straight ahead at the empty white ceiling.

"Good morning." Rei's lips barely moved as he spoke, and he continued to lie flat on his back, stubbornly ignoring Teru's gaze.

"G – good morning."

"You're still here."

A sickening lump rose from Teru's stomach to his throat as the events of the previous evening replayed themselves in a mad rush. He was still here, yes… in the bed of a man who had claimed to love him, who had been in love with someone else all along. He had stayed… why? Out of pity? Or out of the remains of some stupid, desperate hope?

"Yes." The word came out raspy and weak, a reminder of the screaming he had done last night, and his face flushed bright red. "I fell asleep. What – what time is it?"

"Does it matter?" Rei turned his head at last, and Teru had to force himself not to flinch. As glad as he was that he had stayed, that Rei had let him… that face still wasn't a sight to wake up to.

"Um… yeah. I've got that interview today…"

"Interview?" Rei's face fell, and his voice turned to ice. "I see."

"Rei?"

"Yes?"

Teru sighed. "You have to learn to trust me, okay? I guess I forgot to tell you, but I really do have an interview. With Shoxx." He forced a smile.

"Shoxx?" The ice melted a little, and genuine curiosity coloured Rei's voice. "Impressive. I… I wish you had told me."

"Sorry." _But it wasn't exactly like we were speaking to each other._ "What time is it?"

Rei turned away again to glance at the alarm clock. "Ten o'clock. What time is your interview?"

"Twelve…" Teru ran some numbers through his head. It would take ten minutes to walk to the station, about fifteen minutes to Shinjuku, five to Nakano, fifteen to his apartment… "Shit!" It would be cutting it too close, and he couldn't show up at the Shoxx head office looking and smelling like the sole survivor of an explosion at the cigarette factory.

"Um… Rei?" he ventured, raising his head a little so that he was not quite sitting, but not quite lying down. "Do you think… I mean, would it be okay if I, uh… if I used your shower?"

Rei blinked. "My... shower?"

"I just, uh…" Teru pushed a stubborn strand of hair out of his eyes. "I don't have time to go home. And I can't… I smell like shit."

Something close to a smile tugged at the corner of Rei's mouth. "You smell like a live house."

"Yeah." Teru blushed. "I smell like I didn't go home last night and… you know. That's not going to look good."

Rei closed his eyes for a moment, seeming to consider the idea. "It wouldn't," he agreed at last. "Go ahead."

Teru tossed his half of the comforter aside and sat up, swinging his legs over the side of the monstrous bed. "It's the door across the hall, right?"

"The one on the right is the toilet. The one on the left is the bath."

"Okay. Thanks." Teru made his way through the bedroom as quickly as possible, trying to force himself not to see, not to think about the relics of pain that served as decoration, though those thoughts were infinitely preferable to the only other thing that he seemed able to think about.

_Saki_. He had not dared to say anything to Rei. He wasn't sure that he wanted to. Maybe it was better to let the past be exactly that – the past.

_January 5th, 1995… _

_What was he like? What did he look like? What did he like to do? Would he really have wanted you to love again? Would he really have wanted it to be me? Can you ever forgive yourself, Rei? Was it even your fault to begin with?_ A thousand questions that he could never ask flooded his mind, and the one bit of comfort among them was also the only bit of certainty: Whatever the answers were, they wouldn't change the way he felt. Rei had thought that last night's revelation would turn adoration to hate – but Teru couldn't have hated Rei if he had tried. He was nervous and terrified, full of pain and numbness and pity, but there was also…

_Love._

Teru nearly slammed the bathroom door shut behind him, and the walls shook faintly with the impact. Was realizing that you loved someone supposed to feel so _bad?_

He peeled his clothes off, wrinkling his nose a little in disgust. They really did smell bad, but there wasn't a lot that he could do about that. Showing up in last night's clothes would tell the guys that he hadn't been home; showing up wearing something of Rei's would tell them exactly why. He was just going to have to hope that the shower put him somewhere on the other side of completely disgusting.

The bathroom mirror was spilt down the middle by an enormous crack which managed to make one side of Teru's face appear half a centimeter higher than the other, and in the sink beneath it, another dark blue wig was soaking in some kind of mixture of shampoo and water. He wasn't going to be able to brush his teeth, but at least the mirror was halfway useable: he could see what he looked like, more or less. At least it would be better than trying to do his hair in the bathroom at the station.

The bath itself was no cleaner than Teru's own, but it was perfectly serviceable and, like the apartment, large enough to have been used by a family of three or four. The tub was deep, and long enough that two people could have sat in it together if they'd wanted to; Teru was half-tempted to fill it up with hot water and enjoy a nice, long soak. He felt a little twinge as he noticed the handrails rimming the walls, the stool that was both higher and wider than usual and which looked like something out of a commercial featuring old ladies and their hip problems, and he wondered again if all of this was really necessary, or if it had been, however many years ago.

_How bad is it, really?_ He should have been thinking of something else – depressing himself before the interview wasn't going to do anyone any good. But in some respects, at least, his feelings for Rei were no different than the feelings he'd had for any of the other people he'd ever liked, or dated… or loved. He wanted to know everything, even if he was a little bit afraid of the answers.

He squeezed some liquid soap into the palm of his hand and worked it into a rich white lather, and even that simple action made him feel a little bit cleaner. By the time the last of the suds had been washed away, his concerns about the interview were nearly gone. He would look fine; he would smell fine. If only it were so easy to get rid of everything else.

Hot water streamed down his scalp in rivers, plastering still-stiff bits of hair to Teru's cheeks and neck and back as it carried away the least resilient remnants of last night's hairspray and mousse. He let the stream of water pound at the back of his neck for a minute, massaging muscles that he hadn't even realized were aching, until the hand that was holding the shower head grew tired and he was forced to replace it on the wall. The hot water didn't feel as good on a summer morning as it would have at any other time of the year, but the heat and the steam were relaxing, in a way, and he allowed it to continue to fall over his body as he reached for the shampoo.

"Shit!" Teru cursed aloud. He'd been sure that one of the other bottles lining the shelf next to the tub would be shampoo, and until that moment, it hadn't seemed like a terribly stupid assumption to make. When he pressed down on the pump, however, the only thing that spurted out was a desperate gasp of empty, transparent bubbles. The next bottle was no better, and when he had tried all four of them, he picked one up and actually bothered to read the label. It was just soap. Empty soap bottles, one beside the next, taking up space on the shelf until it became too small and forced Rei to throw them away. And that made as much sense as Teru's original assumption had seemed to – What did Rei need shampoo for?

_In the shower, anyway... _But there had been a soapy wig in the sink. Teru didn't know what was typically used to wash wigs, but there was at least a chance that, whatever it was, it would be at least marginally effective in getting last night's gunk out of his hair.

He stopped the water, and opened the door, his long wet hair sprinkling the floor with sticky hairspray-water as he did so. He made a mental note to wipe the floor before he left, though he privately thought that Rei wouldn't notice the difference.

There were a dozen bottles and jars of various shapes and sizes lining the sink – hand soap, lotion, something that might have been mousse… and a huge discount-store bottle of shampoo-and-conditioner-in-one. Teru picked it up with a grimace. This stuff wasn't exactly going to do wonders for his hair, but he supposed that it would be better than regular soap. Again, it made sense – there was no need to worry about moisturizers or color-protecting agents when it came to synthetic wigs – but to Teru, at the moment, it managed to be both a disappointment and an uncomfortable reminder of everything that Rei had been through.

When he emerged from the shower a few minutes later, his hair was no longer standing up in a thousand different directions, but it didn't feel any less like straw, and seemed unwilling to do anything except trail lifelessly down his back. It had been a long time since he's wore his hair straight; usually it was either tied up for work or teased up for a show. The person in the cracked reflection didn't look very much like Teru at all. Still, there wasn't a lot that he could do about it. He didn't expect Rei to have much in the way of styling products – though he was half tempted to try the can of maybe-mousse – or even hair bands.

"I'm trying a new look," he explained to his reflection with a crooked smile that melted immediately into a scowl of frustration. There was no way that the guys were going to buy it. He looked like he hadn't been home the night before, and that was all there was to it.

The stack of towels next to the washing machine looked like they were probably clean, and Teru took one from the top, wiping the excess water from his body before using the towel to tie back the sopping mess that was his hair. He pulled on his boxers and pants, but draped the shirt over one arm as he left the bathroom. Even indoors, it was still a sticky July morning, and every minute might make a difference when it came to smelling like he'd had a decent night's sleep.

Rei was sitting upright in the bed, the mask and wig once again obscuring his face, though he still wore the clothes that he had slept in. He smiled as Teru entered the room, and it seemed almost like a peace offering. "I'm sorry." He apologized for what seemed like the millionth time. "The bathroom is dirty…"

Teru laughed in spite of himself, and was relieved when it only sounded a little bit forced. "No worse than mine," he stated truthfully. "Thanks. For everything."

Rei said nothing then, but continued to stare at the comforter, or his lap, or his hands. He opened his mouth, then closed it again, seeming to reconsider whatever answer he had been about to make. The response, when it came at last, was barely more than a whisper.

"Stay."

"What?"

"Stay." Rei looked Teru in the eyes, and his voice grew stronger. "Don't leave me."

"I – I wish I could."

"Come back, then?"

There was such hope in that voice that Teru almost said yes without a thought of the consequences. It made perfect sense. He would come back after the interview; they would pick up where they had left off...

"I can't." He shook his head, willing the fantasy to go away, to leave him alone. "Not today. I have to work…" _But he wants me to stay… I can't just walk away._ He fumbled through a mental version of the week's schedule: _Work, work, band meeting…_ "Um… how about Thursday?"

"What?" Rei seemed genuinely shocked.

"Thursday. I'm off…" Teru couldn't remember making the choice to stare at his own feet, but he was doing so now. This was completely stupid… after what had happened last time, he couldn't believe that he'd even dreamed of doing what he was ninety-nine percent sure that he was going to do now. "We could… go out?" he offered weakly. "Do something… fun?"

"Fun…" Rei repeated the word thoughtfully. "We could… do something… fun."

"I mean… we don't have to. It was just…"

"A surprise." The icy voice seemed to melt a little. "But not… not a bad one. Something fun. I think… I would like that very much."

Teru's heart skipped a beat. "Uh… okay. Thursday, then."

Rei smiled, and the smile almost managed to reach his eyes. "Thursday. Oh, and Teru?"

"Yeah?"

"What – what I told you last night… I…"

Teru shook his head. "It doesn't matter." It did, of course, but not in the way Rei seemed to think it did.

"How can you say that?" Rei hugged his lifeless right arm to his chest, as though trying to protect it – or hide it. "How…?"

"I… I guess there's a lot we have to talk about." Teru shrugged, trying hard to pretend that he meant what he said, that he really _didn't_ care about Saki, or whatever had happened on that night, five and a half years ago. "But we have time for that, right?"

"Time?" Rei seemed to consider the word for a moment. "I… I suppose we do."

"Yeah…" Teru glanced nervously at the alarm clock. He didn't want to leave now, like this, with so much still unsaid. But there wasn't exactly a lot that he could do about it right now: the interview would start at noon, with him or without him. "So… I'll see you on Thursday, okay?"

"On Thursday."

"Thanks… for letting me stay and all."

"It was… my pleasure." Rei followed Teru's gaze to the clock, then, and forced a smile. "Don't let me keep you from your interview."

It wasn't exactly "good luck," but it would have to do.

* * *

Teru had left the map to the Shoxx office in the back of the van the night before, but he remembered the name of the subway station where he was supposed to meet the others, and managed to show up about ten minutes early, hoping it would be enough time to figure out exactly where he was supposed to go. As it turned out, however, he guessed the right exit on the first try: Yuu was waiting outside the ticket gate with Teru's duffel bag slung over one shoulder, smoking a cigarette and glancing every once in awhile at his phone.

"Hey." He offered a tired smile along with the bag. "You forgot this."

"Thanks."

"You want one?" Yuu pulled an open pack of cigarettes from his pocket and offered it to Teru, who gratefully accepted.

"Sure."

Neither of them spoke for a long moment. Another train must have arrived; a flood of people poured through the ticket gates, but none of the faces were familiar. When the crowd had dispersed, Yuu spoke again. "Your friend was all right, then? Last night?"

Teru nodded. "Yeah." He and Yuu had never been close – they talked about music, costumes, makeup, and not much else. He didn't really want to talk about Rei with his band leader, not even in euphemisms and pronouns.

"That's good."

The standard-issue subway station clocked ticked off another minute. Teru shifted his weight anxiously from one foot to the other. He'd hoped someone else would have shown up by now. "Have you heard from anyone else?"

Yuu flicked the ashy ends of his cigarette onto the floor. "Nao's going to be on time, but barely. Haven't heard from the others..."

"But they're usually not late." Teru finished the thought.

"Yeah…. Oh, I for got to tell you. About the interview."

"Yeah?"

"They're probably going to ask us about future projects… recordings, gigs, you know. Just – just don't say anything about the album, okay?"

"No problem." Teru's cigarette had burned itself down to the filter, and he tossed the butt to the ground. "Those questions are yours."

Yuu nodded. "That's probably the best idea. I don't want to announce anything before the plans are finalized. You haven't mentioned it to Rei yet, have you?"

"Um… not yet."

"Okay." Yuu considered this for a moment. "If you think it's alright – "

"'Morning!" Yasu stifled a yawn as he ran through the ticket gate with Seika and Nao in tow. "Sorry we're late."

Yuu glanced at the clock with a smile, seeming – for the time being, at least – to forget the conversation. "You're barely on time. Let's go, then?"

The office was only about five minutes' walk away, and no one spoke much on the way there. They were all sleepy, Teru guessed, though everyone else seemed to have managed to go home and take a shower. He was the only one still dressed in his clothes from the night before, but to his great relief no one seemed to find that particular detail worthy of comment. Maybe they were nervous, too; Teru, for his part, felt nothing at all. His head was full of Rei, and Saki, and Thursday. He knew that the interview was important, but his heart was having trouble feeling the urgency that his mind said it should have.

The Shoxx building was just an office building, an eight-story metallic rectangle with the name of the magazine printed in tiny letters alongside the logos of the other seven tenants. There was nothing about it to set it apart from the other buildings on the street, nothing that screamed visual rock, or the path to stardom, or even a chance for a tiny indies band to get noticed. But Teru's bandmates were smiling nervously, and he forced himself to join them, though he was almost ashamed to admit that his nerves came from a very different combination of joy and fear.

They were greeted by a tiny, bouncy receptionist – the first sign that they were really in the Shoxx offices, she didn't bat an eye at the sight of five exhausted musicians with multi-colored hair, but smiled a plastic smile and gestured toward the nearer of two unremarkable elevators. "Sixth floor!" she chirped. "Ms. Kogo is expecting you."

The elevator doors opened on a world that was entirely different from the one that they had just left. The sixth floor lobby was covered in posters, most of them signed, some starting to fade and curl at the corners. From every corner of the room, famous faces turned to greet them. Some of them, Teru knew – guys he had played with who had gone on to bigger and better things. Urgent Venus, who had been their host the night of Teru's vocal debut, was given a small spot in a corner, and Teru's beloved X was given quite a bit more than that. An enormous poster, signed by at least a couple of the members, dominated one side of the room. His idols were watching him, though whether they were encouraging him or berating him for a twisted sense of priority, Teru wasn't entirely sure.

"Hello, hello!" A tall woman in a chic business suit, whom Teru supposed to be Ms. Kogo, strode into the lobby on a pair of painfully high-heeled sandals and flashed them a surprisingly warm smile. If she hadn't really been looking forward to this interview, at least she was a better actress than the receptionist. "You must be La Rose Verboten. Did I pronounce that right?"

"Yes." Yuu stepped forward and gave her a low, respectful bow. "It's a pleasure. I'm Yuu, guitarist and leader. This is Teru, our vocalist."

"It's an honor, ma'am." Teru didn't know where the words had come from, but he couldn't help but smile with pride. He hadn't fucked that part up, at least.

"Yasu, guitarist. Seika, bassist. And Nao, our new drummer." Yuu introduced the others in turn, and Ms. Kogo smiled.

"It's a pleasure to meet you all. Now, if you'll just follow me, we'll be talking right back here. This way, please." She turned on one of those impossibly high heels and set a brisk pace through a sea of cubicles to a small, walled-off room at the back of the office. "Please, have a seat and relax."

The room was furnished with a set of three low sofas, as well as a coffee table and a straight-backed chair that Teru guessed would be Ms. Kogo's. Yuu led the way, taking a seat at the end of the furthest sofa, and the others followed. A young girl – an intern, maybe, or a new employee – appeared from some corner of the office with a tray of tea and crackers, and placed it wordlessly on the table with a smile.

"Please, enjoy." Ms. Kogo gestured toward the refreshments. "Relax for a _just _a moment while I get the tape ready… there. I'd like to start recording, if you're ready?"

Yuu nodded his consent, and the interview began.

Teru had given little thought to the questions they'd actually be asked, but he wasn't at all surprised. Nothing that their interviewer asked was anything other than routine: the formation of the band, the original members, the recent addition of Nao. Yuu gave her a printout of their upcoming schedule, which she promised would be reproduced at the end of the interview, and they chatted for a bit about the upcoming shows and the possibility of new costumes and new songs. "No promises! Yuu defended himself with a laugh. "But we're definitely still evolving as a band, still thinking of new things to try."

"Would you say that your band, your music, has any kind of theme?"

"Roses and thorns," Seika answered immediately. "Beauty and pain, light and darkness – they're one and the same."

Teru nodded his agreement – it was a theme that could have been attributed to just about any visual kei band, but it answered the question simply enough, and the reporter seemed to be satisfied. The next question, however, wasn't quite to easy to explain away.

"You seem to have gone through some thematic changes lately. Was this a deliberate decision, or something that happened naturally?"

Teru felt a drop of sweat trickle down the back of his neck, although the air-conditioned office remained pleasantly cool. "I… it was when I started singing." The voice that spoke was distant and strange, and didn't seem like Teru's own. "I think that a change in… uhh, lineup… always affects a band… like that."

The interviewer turned her attention to him. "You are composing for your own voice, then?"

"N – no… I don't compose…"

"Yuu and I do most of the songwriting." Yasu interrupted.

"I see." Ms. Kogo made some kind of note in her book. "Do you compose together, then? The liner notes to your new single say 'music and lyrics by La Rose Verboten'."

"No… not exactly." Yasu glanced at Yuu as though asking permission. "That song was actually written by… a friend."

"A friend? Interesting…" She made another note. "A member of another band?"

Five sets of eyes turned to Teru. He was going to have to answer this one – no one else would know any answer to give. "No…" he whispered, then repeated himself in a louder voice. "No. I mean, he used to be. But not anymore."

"Anyone our readers would know?"

"No." Teru answered, but the next question never came. Ms. Kogo was waiting for more, and Teru could feel his bandmates' eyes on him… wondering. "No. He's… he never did visual kei." That was a lie, plain and simple, but those secrets weren't Teru's to tell, and there was always a chance, after all, that someone would remember a band called Aeternum, and a singer called Rei…

"I see." The reporter didn't seem happy with the answer, but she wrote it down and moved on to her next question.

Teru had privately been dreading the end of the interview: he knew that Ms. Kogo wanted to do a "personal" interview with him, and based on her interest in "Yami no Hanabira"'s composer, he was half afraid that the questions would end up being personal in more ways than one. As it turned out, however, "personal interview" only meant that he would be featured in a section in the back of the magazine that was used to showcase individual musicians, rather than entire bands. Teru had seen that page before, but he didn't know that he would have called it an interview – it was more like a profile. When the interview came to a close and he had been asked nothing more intrusive than his favorite brand of tobacco and his "type" of girl, he allowed himself to sigh in relief.

"Relax, man. It's over." Yasu laughed. "No pressure, huh?"

Teru shrugged and forced a laugh. "Yeah, I guess."

"Well…" Ms Kogo pressed the stop button on her tape recorder and snapped her notebook closed with a smile. "Thank you very much for coming. Obviously not everything that we talked about today will make it into the article, but I'll do my best. You should be in next month's issue."

As soon as the elevator doors closed behind him, Yasu let out a triumphant shout. "Next month's issue! Fame and fortune, here we come?"

"It went well." Yuu smiled at Teru. "Sorry about those questions, though, I didn't know she was going to ask about… that."

"No…" Teru shrugged. Had he been so obviously bothered by it? "It's – it's no big deal."

"Yeah? Okay, then." The elevator doors opened, and they spilled out into the lobby. "Oh, hey, I almost forgot!"

"Yeah?"

"Just, speaking of Rei… I really need to talk to him about recording an album. You do think he'd be willing to help, right?"

Teru couldn't think of any reason why he wouldn't, now that they were actually speaking to each other again. "Probably."

"Okay…" Yuu reached into his pocket, producing a slightly folded business card. "Can you give him my number, ask him to call me? I, ah… get the impression that he's not very social, but I really think, with something like this… I want to talk it over with everyone, you know?"

Teru nodded and slid the card into his own pocket. He didn't know if Rei would be willing to work directly with Yuu, but he didn't think that it would hurt anything to ask. "I'll give it to him the next time I see him, okay?"

"Thanks."

_The next time I see him… _

_Thursday… _

_What the hell are we going to do?_

The graveyard shift that night was as dead as the name implied, and Teru found himself with plenty of time to consider that very question. What _were_ they going to do? He wasn't sure how things were supposed to work when two men went out together, but since he had done the asking, in a sense at least, he felt obligated to come up with something resembling a plan. The more he thought about it, however, the more he realized how little he knew about Rei, about what he could do and what he _wanted_ to do, and as the night wore on, it began to seem as though there were nothing in the world that the two of them could do together and actually enjoy.

He was flipping through the latest issue of _Tokyo Walker_ when Junko, the shift manager, found him. "Reading on the job, are we?" Her tone of voice was friendly, though, and she pulled up a chair beside him and started to read aloud over his shoulder. "Ten best ramen shops on the Yamanote Line. Five best seaside views. You know, Ijima, if I didn't know better…" She laughed. "I'd think you had a hot date. A little advice – avoid the ramen."

Teru blushed. "I wasn't looking at _that_." But the seaside views hadn't looked any more promising, either. Girls liked shit like that, sure… but Rei wasn't a girl, and most of these places looked less than easy to get to. Whoever said you didn't need a car in Tokyo had obviously never felt the need to visit a deserted stretch of undeveloped shoreline.

"Well… let's see…" Junko took the magazine out of his hands and turned a few of the pages. "Here's a place where you can go ice skating in the middle of summer. I saw an ad for that on the train the other day! Does she like skating?"

"Um… not a big sports fan." Teru chose to ignore the pronoun; he was blushing badly enough as it was.

"No sports, huh? Okay, how about a movie?"

The thought had actually crossed his mind, but it seemed like a waste of time, too, to sit in the dark for two hours, unable to see or talk to each other. He said as much to Junko, and she nodded her agreement.

"Yeah… not great for a first date. Go to a park? Ueno Zoo?"

"Maybe. That's not bad." But he didn't know how much strolling through the park Rei was going to be able to handle. "I don't know… I mean, my date is… was…. was in an accident." Teru breathed a silent sigh of relief. It was the first time that he had really let himself talk about Rei in that sense, and it felt surprisingly good to get even that tiny, non-specific detail off his chest. "Not – not very recently" he continued, "but I don't really know about anything physical. Parks, movies… those are both okay. But not perfect."

"Okay." Junko nodded. "Um… there's always shopping?"

_But I don't have any money and I doubt Rei's going to want to try anything on._

"Something more interesting?"

Junko pouted. "You're being difficult." She glanced at the clock: it was three o'clock, and neither of them got off until six. "But I guess we have the time."

By the end of their shift, they had been through every dating, sightseeing, and event-related magazine in the place – but it had been worth it. Teru had a plan that was, if not perfect, still pretty damn good. He would be taking some chances… but something about this seemed right.

_Two more days…_

* * *

**Notes:** Regarding Japanese bathrooms… the toilet and bath are almost always separate. A little one-room place like Teru's would have both in the same room, but Rei's apartment is a bit larger and wouldn't really be intended for single occupancy. The bathtubs are huge, and you shower outside of the tub, then take a soak in clean hot water. Just in case that description made no sense at all.

Shoxx is a real magazine, but I've never been in their head office and have no idea what it looks like. Probably NOT the way I've described it, so when you come to do the Sakikaeru tour of Tokyo, don't expect to find that particular scene.

Tokyo Walker is a magazine about places to go and things to do in Tokyo, although the specific articles I mentioned are made up.

Next: The date! I'll try not to keep you waiting too long…


	26. otagai no tame ni

**Acknowlegements:** Thanks to Monj for betaing, and even though she never got around to betaing, thanks to maccha for continuity advice!

**Notes:** For those of you who have been waiting, I'm sorry that this took so long. To anyone coming upon this story for the first time, thank you for reading this far! There was about a thirteen-month gap between this chapter and the previous one. Feel free to be brutal with any reviews! Extended Author's Note follows the chapter.

* * *

**Chapter 26: otagai no tame ni -for one another-**

It hadn't been the best of days so far, but, as Teru tried to tell himself a hundred times between Shinjuku and Meguro, it could have been worse. At least he hadn't overslept.

Teru had been up at five that morning, dragged out of bed by the first beams of sunrise that came pouring through his window with a week's supply of heat in tow. He was usually able to sleep through the insanely early summer mornings that in Tokyo were par for the course, but as luck would have it, he'd actually managed to get to bed at a decent time the night before and that, coupled with nerves, was enough to rule out any possibility of sleeping in.

He'd dragged his feet in the bathroom, washing his hair twice and over-styling it until not a strand was out of place, but even that had left him with time to kill, and for nearly two hours he'd forced himself to struggle through some Playstation game that he hadn't touched in months. He had managed to completely forget where he was supposed to go next, and with what promised to be the most nerve-wracking day of his life ahead of him, he found that he didn't really care. When his character was finally killed near the top of a mountain that he thought he might have already scaled, Teru turned the game off with a sigh and began to walk to the station at the slowest pace he could manage.

When he arrived at Meguro station, he was still over thirty minutes early. He considered getting something to eat, or at least a cup of coffee, but he hadn't really talked about specific plans with Rei, and didn't want to be stuck eating lunch twice if Rei hadn't had anything yet. He wasn't very familiar with the area, and though he thought that there might be places to window-shop, the only thing readily available was the station's flower shop. It took all of two minutes to browse through the bouquets, earn a dirty look from the middle-aged woman at the register, who must have known "just looking" when she saw it, and resign himself to standing outside the west exit with his phone in one hand and a cigarette in the other.

The minutes crawled by like hours, and the phone was as silent as it had been for the past two days, ever since Rei had sent him a two-word message agreeing to the time that he had suggested. It was more than a little unnerving, though Teru wasn't sure exactly why. He had talked to Kiyomi in the days leading up to their date, just as he had with the girls who had come before her, but it hadn't been every day. There was that element of playing hard to get, he knew, and it was a game that young girls in Tokyo were exceptionally good at – but he hadn't expected Rei to be the same, and where with a girl he _could_ have brushed it off as a game, he wasn't sure what this silence meant, and wasn't sure if he liked it.

He scrolled through the names in his address book until Rei's came up. It would be so easy to push that button, to make that call. But in fifteen minutes – twenty, maybe, if he decided to play the game a little himself – he wouldn't need any permission to go to Rei's house, to knock on the door, to pretend that the silence had never bothered him and that he was as confident about today as he had ever been about anything.

But then again, willpower had never been one of Teru's strengths.

The phone rang once, twice, three times, and in the middle of the fourth ring, Rei picked up. "What is it?"

"I, uh… sorry?" Teru wasn't sure what he was apologizing for, but Rei had sounded preoccupied. "It's just… I'm here early and I was, um, wondering if it would be okay to…"

"Fine."

"What?"

On the other end of the phone, Rei sighed. "Come over early, if you'd like. The door is unlocked." His words were curt, if not exactly unkind, and the line went silent before Teru had a chance to respond.

He'd been dragging his feet all day, and he made a point now of taking the long way around, wandering up streets that may or may not have even led toward Rei's apartment and stopping to look at just about anything in which it was possible to feign interest along the way. But sooner or later, he knew that one of the little side streets would turn into the one he'd been semi-consciously looking for, and when he found it, he didn't turn away. Pausing in front of the door for only as long as it took him to draw a deep breath, he pushed it open and walked on in.

"Rei?"

The bathroom door stood ajar, and Teru heard something clatter and fall to the floor.

"Rei?" He called again. "Are you alright? I'm here," he added as an afterthought.

Another rattle, a clink of metal on porcelain, and Rei's answer, strained and forcibly cheerful: "Please. Wait in the music room."

"Um…. Okay…" Teru kicked his shoes off and stepped up into the apartment proper. "Are you sure you're okay?"

"I am… fine."

"Yeah, okay… um, look, if I'm too early…"

Teru took the lack of response as his cue to sit down and shut up. The music room had been cleaned since the last time he'd been here, and the sofa and table were both free of their typical clutter. He supposed that Rei had tried to be considerate, tried to get things ready for his guest, but Teru wished that he hadn't: there was nothing to do, nothing even to look at in the dark and lonely little room. He would have given just about anything for a TV, or even a book or magazine, but as none of those things were readily available, he contented himself with staring at the clock on his phone, which had apparently decided that a minute wasn't long enough and lengthened it without bothering to ask for Teru's permission.

There was another sound from the bathroom, a muffled thud followed by what might have been a muttered curse, and then a crash as something definitely shattered, startling Teru to his feet.

"Rei? Are you all right?"

There was no answer, and Teru continued: "Can I –"

The door to the bathroom swung open with an air of finality, and Rei emerged at last. "I am ready. We can go."

"You look… nice." Teru blushed. It wasn't necessarily true – there was something about Rei's posture, the way his clothes hung slightly lopsided on his too-slender frame, or maybe it was the red rings around his eyes, imperfectly covered with concealer. He looked as though he had dressed himself in a hurry, and Teru felt another tablespoon of guilt added to what was already weighing on his conscience. He suddenly regretted the phone call, and his decision to come early.

Rei ignored all of this, however, forcing a stiff smile and an even stiffer response. "Thank you." His eyes did not echo the sentiment. "Shall we go?"

Teru nodded, not trusting his voice at the moment to say anything remotely appropriate, and silently shoved his feet into his boots. When Rei had done likewise, they put the apartment behind them, beginning the trek to the station in a bath of sunshine and silence.

He had planned to make some kind of small talk, to comment on the weather or on some insignificant bit of news he had gleaned from the magazine rack at work yesterday, but now, under a billion-megawatt spotlight and before an audience of the world, his lines had failed him, and he had forgotten how to adlib. They reached the station in silence, and when Teru purchased the train tickets, he was hardly shocked to receive only a formal nod in the way of thanks.

The Tokyu Meguro line began its journey underground, making it difficult to feign interest in what was outside the window, but Teru and Rei both did their best, and neither spoke for what seemed like a long while as station after station passed them by with little more than lights and signs to mark their progress. It was not until the train emerged into the sunlight, passing over the cerulean expanse of the Tama River that marked their passage out of Tokyo and into Kanagawa, that Rei broke the silence at last.

"Yokohama." It was barely more than a whisper, but Teru had no doubt that it was intended to be heard. Rei did not wait for a response, however, but stood slowly and shakily, leaning heavily on his cane to combat the rocking of the train, and crossed to the far window where he gazed at the river as it flew past in a shimmer of sunlight and blue. "You are taking me to Yokohama."

Teru licked his lips and glanced nervously around him, unsure of what exactly he was looking for. Rei seemed neither excited nor upset – but something had sent him deep into thought, and Teru found himself beginning to regret a large portion of the plan he had come up with. "Is, um… is there something wrong with that?"

The response was a long time in coming, but when it did Rei's voice had softened once more to a tone that could almost be described as kind. "No." He did not turn from the window, but Teru could imagine the hard line of his mouth softening, maybe even turning up a little at the corner. "It's only that… it's been a long time. A long time."

They changed trains at Musashi-Kosugi and rode the next one to the end of the line – still in silence, but this silence was a more peaceable one. This one said _enough. It is enough to be here. It is enough to be with you. _Whatever had happened that morning at the apartment had somehow been wiped away, wiped clean by the sunlight on the river, and Teru was at once confused and relieved. It still surprised him more than a little that he genuinely _liked _being with Rei. But at the moment, it seemed even more unbelievable that Rei seemed to enjoy being with him.

The walk from the station to the harbor was not a long one, and Teru could have made it in five minutes or less on his own, but with his pace adjusted to match Rei's it was more like ten. He had imagined the scene a little differently the night before, rehearsing the day's agenda in his mind's eye. He was supposed to have said something here, but once more he found his words had deserted him. Besides, it didn't seem necessary to announce their destination. He was not leading Rei to the harbor any more than Rei was leading him – they made their way there together, and what awkwardness there was in that knowledge still felt good somehow, still felt _right_.

They paused for a moment as the crossing light turned from red to green, and made their way across the street to Cosmo World, the small amusement park on the waterfront. The enormous Cosmo Clock Ferris wheel marked the hour in large neon digits, while roller coaster cars, tiny in comparison, buzzed around its base. Here, again, Teru had meant to say something, to ask Rei if he had ever ridden the Ferris wheel, if he wanted to do so again. But Rei had eyes only for the ocean, vaster and more beautiful than the Tama River, and as full of the shimmers of sunlight that seemed to have sparked some ancient memory.

He leaned against the railing, leaning out over the ocean as far as he could, or at least as far as he dared, seeming not to mind the sea breeze that swept the long blue hair away from his face, exposing it to whomever cared to see. Teru wanted to tell him that he could take the mask off, enjoy the day as it was meant to be enjoyed, that he didn't have to be afraid. But he didn't say anything. He didn't dare to interrupt the moment, though he wasn't at all sure if it was a happy one or not. He stood beside Rei, stood against the railing and let his pink hair dance in the wind with blue, forgetting for a moment that only half of the strands were alive, that only half would ever grow or change.

"What am I supposed to say, Teru?"

Rei still faced the ocean as he spoke, but the visible side of his face had fallen into contemplation at least, if not melancholy. "Should I pretend that I am not reminded of him with every step I take, every sound I hear and everything I see? Should I lie, and tell you that we never stood here, on this very spot, on a day much like today, speaking of a future that would never be?" He tossed the cane aside, and Teru heard it fall to the ground with a clatter. "Should I pretend that things are as they were? That I can walk with you as I did with him, side by side, unashamed to be seen?"

He lowered his eyes, no longer looking at the waves but at the rail, at the concrete walkway on which they stood. Looking at reality, Teru thought, but he had the good sense not to put his thoughts into words. This wasn't a fight, and maybe not even a bout of self pity. This was Rei's way of saying something that had to be said, and although he wasn't sure if he _wanted_ to hear it, something told him that he_ should_.

"Should I be honest?" Rei's voice trembled now, but did not falter. "Should I speak to you in words that I cannot bear to say aloud, to tell you… to tell you how bad it really is? To help you understand? Should we lie to one another? Should we hurt each other with the truth? I can't –"

"Stop." Teru's eyes were full of tears; this wasn't the way things were supposed to be. "Just… just stop, okay? Today was… IS supposed to be fun. I'm sorry if I picked a bad place, if I did something wrong. But _everything_ can't be wrong, okay? No matter what we do, it always turns into this… and today isn't going to be like that, okay? Tell me about Saki if you want. If you're tired, if something hurts, then tell me. But tell me what feels good too, because that's all I meant to do, okay? I just… I just want to have fun."

Rei closed his eyes and nodded. "I'm sorry."

"No…" Teru shook his head. "Don't be. I mean… I didn't know that coming here would… bring back memories."

"I'm sorry," Rei repeated. "They are not… not bad memories. Just… just memories. Just… memories."

"Do you want to leave?"

Rei took a deep breath. "No."

"Do you… um, do you want to ride the Ferris wheel?"

The lines that he had rehearsed over and over again in his head the night before seemed childish, inappropriate even, when uttered out loud, but they brought a smile to Rei's face that seemed to be at least somewhat genuine.

"I think… yes. I do."

Teru smiled in return, then bent to the ground to retrieve the cane from where it had fallen.

_Thank you,_ Rei's eyes seemed to say. _Thank you for not making me ask._

* * *

They rode the Ferris wheel twice that day: sunset from the apex was the one part of his original plan which Teru had been unwilling to sacrifice, and though it meant paying the astronomical fare no less than four times, he found himself doing so with a smile. It hadn't been a bad day after all, even with Saki as an absent chaperone and a hundred unsolved issues hanging over their heads. There was a secret to dealing with Rei, he had discovered – give him what he needs, but don't make him ask for it. From the moment they had left the waterfront, every door had been opened, every fare paid, every can or bottle opened and every destination within reach. Rei was different from everyone else he had ever dated, and not just in the obvious ways: every girlfriend Teru had had – one night stands notwithstanding – had been a friend first, and a lover only later. With Rei, what little semblance of friendship that was there took a backseat to something more powerful, more primal and terrifying, but somehow more rewarding as well. They protected each other. They loved each other, he supposed… but it was a protective, defensive kind of love. 

Of course, Teru reminded himself as he helped Rei into the Ferris wheel car for the second time, those other relationships hadn't exactly worked out. Maybe this was better, somehow. More real, at least. _He does for me what I can't do for myself, and I return the favor. Two halves of a whole… or at least two parts of SOMETHING._

He hadn't asked about Saki, although Rei had seemed as though he may have wanted to explain. Teru had wanted today to be _their_ day, his and Rei's, alone – and it had been, for the most part. He hadn't followed his original plan very closely either, but that was more of an issue of practicality. Rei worked hard to hide it, but the more time they spent together, the more Teru was becoming aware of exactly how taxing even the slightest bit of physical exertion could be on his date's badly damaged body. But that hadn't really been a problem either – there was more to do in this area alone than could be accomplished in a single day, and so the plan was put aside in favor of a growing sense of intuition.

Now, as the sun began to set over the harbor in a brilliant blaze of pink and gold, their lips met, repeating what they had been saying wordlessly to one another all day long. _I need you. I'll take care of you. I need you._

Rei sighed deeply as the kiss trailed into a natural, peaceful end. "Thank you," he whispered. "Thank you for today."

Teru shook his head. "Don't make it sound like that."

"Like what?"

"Like… I don't know. Like it's over. I mean… we could have dinner, or something?"

"Teru…"

"I mean…" He didn't want to give Rei a chance to say no, not when things had been going so well. "We still have time, right? And there's a lot of… stuff… to talk about." It wasn't much of an invitation, but it was going to have to do.

"Shhhh." Rei raised a single finger to Teru's lips. "I am not trying to refuse your invitation, merely to make one of my own. Dinner is on me."

Teru started to shake his head, but Rei would not allow it. "I insist. Have you ever played at 7th Avenue?"

"What?" Teru blinked, taken back by the apparent non sequitur. "The – the live house?"

"It is not far from here. A few kilometers up the shore."

"Yeah. I know where it is. It's just, um… what does that have to do with dinner?"

Rei looked out the window, in what Teru supposed was the general direction of 7th Avenue, though there was no way that anyone would be able to see it from here. "I used to play there quite often." His voice was quiet, calm, but not sad, and the expression on his face was a peaceful one. "With my first band, when I first came to Tokyo. I suppose it was… nearly twenty years ago, now. We would eat at the same place after every show." He sighed. "It may no longer be there, of course, but if it is…"

Teru was almost afraid to respond. _Twenty years ago…_ He had known that Rei was quite a bit older, that he had been in the music scene for a long time… but twenty years seemed like a lifetime – and to Teru, nearly was. "That would be really nice," he said at last, and meant it. "I hope… I really hope it's still there."

To both of their surprise, it was – a tiny, smoky hole-in-the-wall serving little more that skewers of grilled chicken and beer, crammed unceremoniously between two chain izakayas a few minues' walk from Sakuragicho station. At first, Teru was sure that there must be some mistake – it was hard to imagine Rei _ever _having eaten at a place like this, much less wanting to return here now. But the look on his face as they took a seat at a table constructed of plastic crates and particle board was one of a lost child, returning to a home he had almost forgotten after years of wandering in the cold.

"The place has hardly changed." Rei's eyes took in everything with a kind of desperation, a longing that Teru recognized from the faces of the elderly – his grandmother and her sister, before she had died, hungering over a box of old photographs or letters from before the war. But Teru bit back his pity along with his curiosity and forced himself to say nothing. He was too interested in what Rei might have to say to him.

They ordered without really bothering to look at the menu, and when their beers came, still frosty and sweating after their recent liberation from some hidden refrigerator, they toasted over the makeshift table, laughing over everything and nothing as though they were old friends. Teru took a swig of his beer and was almost amused to see Rei, connoisseur of fine wines and cognac, do the same.

"We used to come here, after a show." Rei spoke slowly and deliberately, choosing his words carefully – or perhaps just trying unsuccessfully to keep the emotion out of his voice. "This place was old, even then. But the food is good, and the price is right." He met Teru's eyes then, and laughed a short, bitter laugh. "I was not always so… well-off, you know."

Teru bit his lip. "The insurance money."

"Among other things, yes." A silence fell between them, and for a moment Teru was afraid that he had spoiled everything, but to his relief, Rei continued. "I did not know happiness when I had it."

Teru could think of nothing to say, and so he said nothing. Conversations buzzed around them as groups of businessmen worked their way toward Friday-morning hangovers, and smoke from the grill and from cigarettes filled the air with the scent and the illusion of youth and freedom. Teru hadn't had a cigarette all day, but the realization didn't lead to the kind of fierce desire it usually would have. He was captivated by the Rei who had been, a different person entirely from the reclusive genius he had come to know and the successful young singer he had barely glimpsed. The man sitting across from him now was much like himself, a kid from out of town who had come here with a dream and a pocket full of change. It was easy, in that moment, to imagine that the mask, the wig, the layers of clothing that his everything they were supposed to and more, were a costume and not a disguise. It was easy to pretend that everything was normal, and it seemed like a waste to destroy the illusion with words.

Their food began, little by little, to arrive, and they dug in with all the fervor of starving young musicians, speaking only to comment favorably on the food and to order another round of beers, and then another. When the food was gone, they continued to drink, matching one another sip for sip as the smoke in the restaurant mingled with the foggy liberation of alcohol.

"Where are you from, Rei?" Teru broke the silence at last. It was an irrelevant question, really, but one that he had wanted to ask for a long time.

Rei seemed taken aback, but only for a moment. "Aomori," he replied.

Teru nodded. It didn't matter, really, one place was as good as another.

"I came here when I was sixteen. It took me a very long time to have any success with my music."

Teru nodded again, hoping that there would be more to the story, but there wasn't. "Did you know him then? Saki, I mean?" A lump rose in his throat when he said the name, but if it bothered Rei, he didn't let it show.

"No." Rei took another sip of his beer. "He was younger. Too young."

_Too young to die_. "I'm sorry."

"It is… not your fault."

"It's not yours either." On impulse, Teru grasped Rei's hand from across the table, squeezing it gently and refusing to let go. "It's not."

Rei nodded. "I like your fingernails," he said by way of reply, glancing down at their two hands, intertwined on the table.

Teru blinked. "Um, thanks?" He hadn't meant for the question to creep into his voice, but the change of subject had been abrupt. He had painted his nails the night before, the same bright red that he'd been using at concerts lately, but he hadn't really expected anyone to notice. Rei's nails, in contrast, were too long and ragged, worn down rather than cut, yellowed and dirty around the edges. Teru suddenly wanted to pull his hand away, to undo the terrible contrast he had created, but when he tried to move, Rei held on tight.

"Don't." He must have spoken normally, but in all of the din it sounded like a whisper. "It was a compliment."

"Okay." Teru searched desperately for something else to say, some other subject to bring up. "Um… I had a good time today."

Rei smiled. "As did I."

"So… I guess we should go home. I have to work tomorrow…"

Once more he tried to pull his hand away; once more he was refused. "Come home with me." It was a request, not a demand. Made like a lover, like a friend.

"Okay."

Rei paid for dinner, as he had promised, and they took the train back the way they had came, watching the lights of one city blossom into another and talking about absolutely nothing at all. They arrived at Meguro station a little after nine o'clock – the night was still young, and Teru felt his heart beat a little faster with the thought.

"Wait." He clasped Rei's shoulder gently. "Wait here for just a second. There's something I need to buy."

He disappeared into a drugstore without waiting for a reply, moving at a speed he knew that Rei could not match. It wasn't the kind of place he would have chosen to shop at, but at this time of night the station shops and convenience stores were his only choice. He was lucky, though, in the end: among the shades of red and pink and barely-more-than-clear, he found a bottle of blue nail polish that almost, but not quite, matched the color of Rei's favorite hair. He asked the clerk to put it, along with a cheap file and a bottle of topcoat, in a paper bag so that the contents wouldn't be visible, and slipped it into his own bag to be safe.

Rei was waiting outside, and if he was curious at all about the shopping trip, he was courteous enough not to ask about it. Drugstores sold personal items, too, Teru supposed. Maybe he hadn't made such a bad choice of shops after all. Content with his purchase and the fact that it had remained a surprise, he couldn't help but smile all the way back to the apartment.

Teru took his own boots off, intoxicated fingers struggling a little with the zippers, and then wordlessly began to help Rei with his. _You take care of me, I take care of you… and we both had a lot to drink tonight._ If Rei didn't thank him, he didn't protest either; a new understanding had somehow arisen between them today, and it was nice, if still a little uneasy.

"Wait for me in the music room," Rei requested, when both of them were rid of shoes and bags and wallets. "I will prepare drinks. No beer, this time, I think." He smiled when he said it, as though it were some kind of private joke.

Teru took the opportunity to dig the little paper shopping bag out of his bag and spread its contents on the table. It wasn't bad for a last-minute manicure kit. He only hoped that Rei would be happy with the idea. So much had gone right today and it had given Teru confidence – but it was hard to tell, sometimes, what would make Rei angry, or worse, sad.

When Rei returned, however, having traded his cane for a small tray laden with whiskey that he seemed to threaten to drop with every step, the gentle smile on his lips widened into what may have been a genuinely happy one. "Teru," he said, and the tone of his voice said everything else.

"You said you liked my nails…" Teru blushed.

"Thank you." Rei laid the tray down on the coffee table and sat beside Teru on the couch. "I… I do not deserve this. But thank you."

"Yes you do." Teru had begun to brush his fingers through the too-perfect strands of Rei's hair, but something tugged at his heart, and he removed the wig, instead. His eyes asked the question, and a barely visible nod was all the answer he needed. It was okay, today. Everything was going to be okay.

The mask was next, and though Rei flinched a little to feel the night air upon his face, Teru felt less discomfort than he had before, and did his best not to let the bit that remained show. He couldn't tell himself that it wasn't that bad – it was – but he could get used to it. They could work out a way to deal with all of the obstacles that lay between them, and if it felt slightly inappropriate to think of his lover's appearance as an obstacle, it was a hell of a lot better than thinking of it as a wall. Obstacles could be overcome, Teru told himself as he removed the long overcoat that hid Rei's too-thin frame.

"Shall we have a drink?" Rei's voice was low and dry – nervous, Teru thought, though with Rei he could never be sure.

_You don't have to worry._ He reached for a glass, smiling as he raised it in a wordless toast. _You don't have to hide from me ever again._

From some hidden pocket in the folds of his skirt, Rei produced a handful of pills. "Painkillers," he explained dryly before washing them down with his own whiskey.

"Did I – ?"

"You did nothing." Rei shook his head. "I had a good time today. I am tired. As are you." He smiled what would have been a gentle smile, has the twist of his lips not made it ghastly. "I do not wish to hide from you any more, Teru. I am tired."

Teru looked down at his own hands, watching them wring themselves together in a silent fit of worry. "I'm sorry," he repeated. "I thought…"

"Stop." Rei's voice was firm, but final, and Teru asked no more. Instead, he took Rei's hands in his own and placed them softly, gently, in his lap. Retrieving the nail file from the table, he began to work, shaping the long, jagged fingernails into something that was, if not beautiful, at least simple and even and clean.

He finished the left hand and moved on to the right, hesitating a little as he felt the soft, limp fingers yield completely to whatever pressure he applied. "Tell me if I hurt you," he asked again, without thinking. They were only fingernails, and yet, Rei had entrusted Teru with a part of himself. The responsibility was both exhilarating and terrifying.

Rei closed his eyes and took a deep breath, as though he were embarrassed, and it occurred to Teru that maybe he had repeated the same concern once too often. He opened his mouth to apologize yet again, but before he could, Rei began to speak.

"Do you pity me, Teru?"

Teru considered this for a moment. "Yes," he admitted. "I feel sorry for you, if that's the same as pity. But I admire you too." He finished rounding off the last nail, and paused to examine his work. "I can't imagine…" He couldn't finish the thought, but they both knew how it ended: _I can't imagine what it would be like… to be unable to play an instrument, to run, to stand before an audience and earn their applause._ But it wasn't only that, Teru had seen that today. To be unable to cut his fingernails, to open a can, to ride a bike or drive a car, to cook or hang the laundry out to dry… _The stupid little things we take for granted every day. The things we hate to do but have to… I think I'd want to die._

He surprised himself with the thought. But it was true – he wouldn't want to live like this. "You're stronger than I am," he said aloud, twisting open the bottle of nail polish and beginning to apply it in trembling strokes.

"I am not strong."

Teru shrugged. "You're alive."

"Am I?"

"You have your music. You have friends."

"Friends?" Rei raised his lone eyebrow, questioning.

"You have me," Teru whispered. "The guys in the band too, they want you to keep producing for us. They want to put out an album." He felt a little guilty, realizing that for all his promises, this was the first time he had actually mentioned such a thing to Rei. "And the girl at the live house… Chizuru?"

"You met Chizuru?" Rei's voice grew suddenly cold, suspicious.

Too late, Teru considered that it may have been better to keep that particular meeting a secret. "Yeah," he admitted. "She was worried about you. About us, I guess."

"My personal life is not her business."

Teru shook his head. "I don't think she meant it that way," he explained, although he was pretty sure that she had. "Who… who is she, anyway?" He replaced the cap on the bottle of topcoat and blew gently on Rei's nails to dry them.

Rei did not answer, but rose to his feet, limping across the room to the wall that held his extensive CD collection. Scanning the shelves for only a moment, he quickly located what he was looking for. He removed a single in a thin case and tossed it across the room to Teru, who fumbled to catch it before it fell to the floor.

The cover was one that he recognized – this song had topped the charts a few summers ago, a catchy pop ballad by some busty little idol singer that Teru had to admit he'd been fond of in spite of himself. But there was no way that the perky smile and the perfectly capped teeth on the cover belonged to the girl he had met at the live house – it would take more than a couple of summers to make that kind of change. Still, Rei had intended this as an answer to his question. Teru turned the case over, looking for something that might explain.

And there, at the very top of the back cover, was an answer that raised just as many questions: "Music and Lyrics by Chizuru Sakata."

"She's a composer?" Teru asked, surprised. If she was selling songs to singers like this one, major names on major labels, then what was she doing sweeping the floors at Meguro Rock Maykan?

"No." Rei smiled his crooked smile, clearly amused by whatever secret he was trying to reveal. "_I_ am a composer. _She_… is a face."

"You sell your music under her name?" It wasn't a question; Teru knew that he was right before he asked. It explained a lot of things – how one insurance settlement could have lasted as long as it had, providing not only for the basic standard of living for which those things intended, but for a luxury apartment in one of the most expensive parts of Tokyo, for recording equipment that rivaled that of any professional studio. For the ability to live like this, without ever leaving these walls.

"Teru."

"Hm?"

"I will not be able to see you for… awhile. A week. Perhaps longer."

Teru blinked, taken aback by the sudden change of subject, as well as what it entailed. "Wh – why? What happened?"

Rei shook his head. "I had a good time today. I thank you for that. Please… do not think that this has anything to do with you."

"But… but why? We… we have a show on Sunday." It was a lame protest and Teru knew it.

"I am sorry." Rei met his eyes, obviously sincere. "I must go… somewhere." He took a deep breath. "For Obon."

Teru felt his eyes grow wide as realization dawned. Obon. The festival of the dead. He had not been home for the holiday in years, but he remembered well enough those summers when he was a kid, kneeling before his family tomb with a loop of prayer beads around one hand, pretending to speak to his ancestors while secretly counting the hours until he would be free to lock himself in his room with his headphones and a tape player, turned up as loud as it would go.

"You're going to see Saki."

"I have to."

Teru bit his lip. "Yeah…" He forced a smile, trying not to feel jealous. "Yeah, I understand."

"Thank you."

"Yeah…" Something had strung Teru's heart, and it was soothed only a little by Rei's warm presense next to him, wrapping him in an awkward, lopsided hug as they sat on the couch, talking about nothing at all until the sun came up.

* * *

**Author's Note:** As previously mentioned, there was quite a gap between the writing of the previous chapter and this one. This chapter and my plans for the future of this story have changed quite a bit in the past year, and I feel as though I owe my readers an explanation, if not exactly an apology. This began as a retelling, and now is bordering on not being fanfiction at all. My characters are NOT Erik and Christine, and they have in many ways taken this story into their own hands. Half of what I wrote in the original outline seems horribly out of character now, and so I am working with only a minimal outline and a handful of scenes that have been in my head from the beginning. 

I toyed briefly with the idea of reworking the story, downplaying the POTO influences and rewriting it as something publishable, or at least shareable as original fiction. To do that, however, would be to destroy the core of my story… either that, or to publish fanfiction, which I have always said I would never do.

So here it is, and here it remains. I cannot promise where the story will go from here. I do not expect it to follow the POTO storyline… but if you have come this far with me, than I can only hope that you are willing to come further, and to see what these characters do in THEIR story. Thank you all very much for your support of this story.

On a totally unrelated note, I have taken a tiny bit of liberty with some dates in this chapter. Yokohama 7th Avenue wasn't actually around in 1980, although it is a real place. The Ferris wheel is also real. Everything else is just a part of the crazy world of my imagination.


	27. jyunrei

**Author's Note:** This is the second time I have uploaded a "Chapter 27." The original one has been deleted, and this is obviously very different. As far as the rest of the story is concerned, the events of the deleted chapter never happened. The backstory revealed in it was valid... but if you assume you never read it (or if you DIDNT ever read it) you are not missing anything!

* * *

**Chapter 27: jyunrei -pilgrimage-**

The sun was too bright, and the world too loud, as he stood at the edge of nowhere waiting for tears that would not come.

Eight times he had come here before, and eight times he had allowed himself, willed himself, _forced_ himself to cry. Eight times he had come with a host of burdens, hoping to have them lifted by the only one who had ever understood. Eight times he had begged for forgiveness, and eight times he had been answered only by his own tears.

But this time, the ninth time, the tears would not come. He had brought nothing to talk about, nothing to ask or to beg. There were things to be said, and in time he would say them – but today was about something else.

He had come here eight times to speak, but today he had come here to listen.

The voices had always been there, he knew – hiding beneath grief, buried in pain, which in turn had been clouded by music. Drowned out by the roar of the cars on the now-distant highway, the sigh of the wind as it swept through the grass, the inaudible flutter of a butterfly wing, the voices had always been speaking to him.

Today, he would let them be heard.

"I'm sorry."

It was another day, another time. There had been no apologies on _that_ night.

"I love you."

"I know."

"I just wish you understood how I feel…."

"I love you too."

"That's not the same."

"I know. And I'm sorry."

He had apologized so many times, but when it had really counted… had Saki known, in the end? Had he known that those words had never stopped being true?

"Don't leave me."

"Why would I do that?"

"I don't know… just don't. I don't think I could live without you."

"Don't say that."

"But it's true. Let's die together, in this bed, just like this, when we're a hundred years old."

"I will reach one hundred long before you will."

"I'll die young, then."

"Don't say that."

"I just… don't want to be alone."

And then another day, another moment. A scrap of time that should have meant nothing at all.

"You don't even care about me, do you?"

"You're being childish."

"I'm a person, you know. Not just a part of your precious band."

"Now you are being unprofessional."

He closed his eyes against the memory, but in the darkness it still came. He felt it swallow him whole, until the humiliation had drowned out the pain and left him alone with the voice he had dreaded for so long to hear.

_I love you._

_I'm sorry._

_Just leave me alone._

And then, without warning, the voice was joined by another – at once more and less naïve, but just as young and just as fragile.

_You're beautiful._

_It wasn't your fault._

_I'm sorry._

And he knew, then, why he had shut the voices out for so long. They never had the answers he was looking for.


	28. manatsu no yoru

**Author's Note: **This chapter has been completely rewritten. Even if you read the old 28, the story has changed a little bit, so it would help to read this one before moving on to soon-to-be-completed 29! I welcome and appreciate all comments, criticism, etc.

**Acknowledgements:** Thanks to my wonderful beta and mabudachi, maccha! Also a big thanks to all of my writing buddies on LJ... lets all keep going!

* * *

**Chapter 28: manatsu no yoru -midsummer nights-  
**

The first five days passed in a blur. It wasn't that Teru didn't miss Rei – he did, of course, and when he had a moment to think about all that had passed between them the combination of excitement and disappointment was enough to give him a burning headache. But his own schedule was so full that Teru hardly had time to think about things in detail, and when he did it was in the empty moments before bed at night, or in the dark, silent fraction of a minute before the curtain went up on Sunday's show. The rest of his days were filled with work, with music, with a small aching feeling that seemed almost like nerves, almost like excitement… but which he managed to silence most of the time by telling himself that there was just too much to be done.

His phone seemed to be ringing off the hook – there was his boss, asking him to pull an extra shift on Tuesday morning, Kiyomi with a thousand questions about the show, and one by one, the rest of the band members, with talk of an album, an event, maybe a tour. Things were going well, too well to possibly be true, and they owed it all to Rei. When Teru did have time to think of him, it was with a private beaming joy, a kind of pride in himself and in Rei and in what had grown between them.

It was not until the sixth day that Teru began to worry, and even then, it wasn't the kind of worry that could be put into words. He didn't know where Rei had gone, had been given no idea of when to expect him to return. But for some reason, on Wednesday morning, it started to feel like too long.

The morning started on what should have been a positive note. Teru woke up to the sound of his phone ringing; it wasn't too early for a phone call, not really, but he'd overslept. He forced himself to sit up, knowing that if he answered the phone lying down that he'd just be back to sleep as soon as the conversation was over. "Hello?"

"Sorry. Didn't mean to wake you up." It was Yuu, and he sounded sincerely apologetic.

"You didn't wake me up," Teru lied. "What's up?"

"Well… I wanted to ask you, before I talked about it with the other guys. Are you serious… about wanting to do an album?"

Teru wasn't sure why he should be the first one to be asked; it hadn't been his idea, but he had to admit he'd been daydreaming about it since Yuu had brought it up again at rehearsal on Monday. "Why not?" he answered, wishing that Yuu could see his smile. "I mean, if we can afford it."

Yuu laughed. "Well, that's something to ask the guys about, right? I guess… I guess what I mean is, do you think your friend would be able to help us out again?"

The question took Teru by surprise. _ Rei? _ How was he supposed to know what Rei would think? "Uhhh… yeah, I guess. I mean, I could ask him."

If Yuu had noticed anything strange in his voice, he didn't let on. "Thanks. Could you? I want to have a meeting on Saturday if everyone can make it. Since that's one of the things I want to talk about…. If he could make it, that would be great."

_It would?_ Teru hadn't exactly been under the impression that his bandmates had been captivated by Rei's charm. "Yeah… okay… I'll ask him. I'll let you know.

"Okay. Let me know. Bye."

"Yeah. Bye." He hung up the phone and reflexively pressed the button that would bring up his speed dial list, and Rei's number. It was not until his finger was poised above the send button that the cold, haunting worry crept into his chest and decided to stay. He couldn't call – not now. Rei was with Saki, whatever that meant. At his grave, with his family, in his hometown. He had promised to call when he was back in Tokyo, and the fact that he hadn't called yet meant, quite clearly, that he wasn't available. And it had been six days.

Teru hadn't been keeping track, had been too busy to let himself think about it, but he was thinking about it now. Six days suddenly seemed like a very long time. Six days out of town, for a man who rarely left his own apartment. Six days away from the music scene that, Teru suspected, had very literally kept Rei alive for so long. Six days away from a relationship that had finally blossomed into something more than awkward gestures and frustrated tears. It seemed too long, and Teru was suddenly sure that something was wrong.

He wasn't sure what he was worried about, exactly. Even with all of Rei's obvious health problems, there was no reason to think that he'd have any problem getting himself home. Teru strongly suspected that he didn't drive, and there hadn't been anything on the news about a railway accident. Those kinds of thoughts crossed his mind, but they didn't stay there for very long. What stayed, and what really bothered him, was the idea that something else had kept Rei from returning home.

He had spent the past five days thinking about anything other than what Rei had told him, what they had shared with each other over the course of the previous week. Now it was all that he could think about. Teru showered, dressed, pretended to get on with his day, but in his mind he was replaying every word, every glance, every moment, trying to think of something, anything that he might have done wrong. Rei had been wracked with guilt; he had needed someone to tell him that everything was all right. Teru had thought he had done that, but it had been six days, and he was forced to face the fact that it may not have been enough. There was a very real chance that Rei didn't want to come home – not, at least, to him.

He kept his phone in his pocket during work that day, but after a six-hour shift, two junk mails were all he had to show for it.

Yuu called him again on the way home, but Teru didn't answer the phone. He had nothing further to add to the conversation they had had that morning, and he didn't particularly feel like being questioned about Rei, and why he hadn't managed to get in touch with someone who was, as far as the rest of the band knew, his friend. So he let the phone ring; if anyone asked, he'd say he'd been asked to work overtime.

The sun was on its way down when Teru reached his apartment, and his phone was silent. He was tempted to throw tact out the window and call, to interrupt whatever it was for the sake of his own peace of mind. But he didn't. He couldn't. He couldn't risk losing what he had found with Rei, as tenuous as it might still be. Instead, he threw a load of laundry in the machine, boiled some spaghetti and, finding nothing remotely resembling sauce in the cupboard, seasoned it with soy sauce and stale sesame seeds. He charged his phone – still silent – and then forced himself to watch an hour of a TV drama that was too far along to pick up on anything but the barest gist of the plot. In the end, he dug out a stack of CDs that he hadn't listened to in a while and picked one out at random. Working on his own music would have reminded him too much of Rei at this point; listening to someone else, he hoped, would distract him.

He stripped down to his boxers – it was too hot and humid for pajamas – and lay on top of his futon, staring at the ceiling while the CD played on. It was late. Not too early to go to sleep, anyway. He wasn't tired, but a few hours probably weren't going to change that fact, and there was nothing better to do. He tugged on the cord for the overhead light: once, twice, until the room was almost completely dark. He turned onto his side, his stomach, then to his back again. He closed his eyes and tried to listen to the music, to pick out each instrument one at a time, tuning the others out, and then letting them flow together again.

His phone, still in vibration mode, sprung to life beside him.

"Hello?" Teru's eyes flew open, and the music vanished into his subconscious.

"Teru."

"Uh... yeah." Although he'd been half expecting it, Rei's voice startled him. "H – hi," he stammered. "You're back?" He hadn't intended it to come out as a question.

"The show went well?" Rei seemed uninterested in small talk; Teru couldn't tell if he sounded apathetic or just tired.

Sunday's show seemed a lifetime away. "It was okay." _It was weird not having you there. _ Teru decided not to put this last thought into words.

"Good."

"Um, look… I'm glad you called." Once he'd made the decision to change the subject, the words came out in a rush. "There's something I need to ask you, and –"

"May I see you?" Rei's voice was quiet, unreadable.

"Now?"

"Please."

"Uh… what time is it?" Teru squinted into the near-darkness, looking for anything other than his phone that would serve as a clock.

"The trains are still running."

"O – okay." Teru could hear the confusion in his own voice. "Okay. Yeah. I'll be there… soon."

"Thank you."

Teru hung up the phone and, finding the cord at last, turned on the lights. He dressed quickly in the same clothes he had worn earlier that day and surveyed his room with a grimace – it was a mess, but there wasn't a lot he could do about that now. The trains may have been running, but they wouldn't be for long, and he had to work again the next day. He would come home if he could, but knowing that he shouldn't count on it, he threw a change of clothes into a paper shopping bag, ran a comb through the most tangled bits of his hair, and without giving himself time to wonder what in the world Rei could want with him in the middle of the night this time, threw on a pair of shoes and rushed out into the night.

The trains running in the opposite direction, away from Shinjuku, were overflowing with sweaty, suited workers, their bodies pressed against the windows and against each other like sardines in a can. The train Teru took, on the other hand, was nearly empty; there weren't many people, apparently, in a rush to get into the city on a weekday night. When he changed trains at Shinjuku, however, it was a different story. He had to cram himself into the train in the first place, and was pushed onto the platform at Shibuya and again at Ebisu, caught in the rush of commuters trying to catch the last few connecting trains and subways home. At Meguro, again, a slightly smaller flood of people poured into the station, most heading for the Tokyu Meguro Line and slightly more reasonably priced neighborhoods. Teru hung back for a moment on the platform, letting the bulk of the commuters swarm past him before inserting his own ticket into the turnstile and putting the station behind him.

He knew that Rei's apartment was no less than a ten minute walk away, but tonight it felt like seconds at most. Teru wasn't sure if that was a good thing or not – he was trying not to think too much, half afraid that he might be expecting too much of this relationship after what really only amounted to one decent date, half afraid that something had changed in the week Rei had been away.

He knocked on the door – once, twice, and when there was no response he turned the knob and was only a little relieved when the door swung open without protest. The entranceway was dark, the two doors to his left closed, lifeless. The bathroom door stood open, and Teru pushed it shut reflexively as he walked past. The only light in the apartment came from the music room.

As he pushed the door open, calling out a hesitant greeting just in case he was interrupting anything, music swelled into being around him. "Rei?" Teru shouted to be heard above the music, but if Rei had noticed him enter the room, he gave no sign. A wave of déjà vu swept over Teru as he was forced to recall the night he had first come here. There was Rei, seated at the computer with his back to the world, bathed in a pale bluish light, seemingly oblivious to the darkness around him. And there was the music – different, this time; it didn't really sound like visual kei, but something older, heavier, dark in a completely different way. It sounded outdated, Teru realized, like the Scandinavian metal Yasu had listened to in high school, but it was obviously incomplete. Two guitars, maybe three in parts, and a keyboard part seemed to be more or less there, but the bassline died out after the chorus and there didn't seem to be any drums or vocals. It seemed like an odd order to be composing something in, but Teru wasn't entirely sure that that was even what Rei was doing. It was so completely unlike the music Rei had played for him before – as if it weren't Rei's composition at all.

The music stopped abruptly, without really coming to an end, and Teru jumped. He hadn't been paying attention to anything but the song; he didn't know if Rei had stopped it, or if that was simply as much as had been programmed.

"You came." Rei spoke without turning from the computer, and Teru felt and uncomfortable lump rise in his throat.

"Yeah. How – how are you?"

"Do you like this song?"

The question took Teru by surprise. "Yeah…" he answered hesitantly, not sure what the right answer would be. "It's not finished."

"It was finished a long time ago." Rei spoke softly, but there was a touch of forcefulness there that made Teru regret making the comment. "I am trying to remember. I want you to sing this… for me."

"Okay." It wasn't really the band's style, and Teru wasn't sure if the others would go for playing something like this live, but he had no problem, at least, with singing whatever Rei asked him to here, tonight.

"I want you to sing it on your album."

"W – what?" Teru was sure that he hadn't told Rei what the others had been planning. Was it possible that he'd mentioned it and forgotten? Or had Rei been talking to one of the other guys about this too?

"Don't be surprised." Rei turned to face him at last, and Teru was relieved to see that the expression on his face was kind. "Your time is now. The single is selling well. You are being featured in magazines. We must give your fans more when they want it, or they will move on to someone else. Listen."

Without waiting for a reply, Rei pressed a single key and brought the music back to life around them. This time, Teru knew, he was hearing the beginning – an intro, a verse, a chorus, a second verse which began and ended. There was a bridge – a guitar solo maybe, but it was possible that the rest of it just wasn't finished – and a final chorus that didn't really seem like it was supposed to be the end. "The ending needs work," Rei commented as though he could read Teru's thoughts. "And the rhythm section is incomplete. But do you like it?"

"Yes." Teru nodded. "Yeah… I like it, but…"

"The others may not."

"Yeah. It's just really… different. Did – did you write it?" Teru knew that Rei might consider the question rude, but something bothered him about the song. It didn't seem like Rei's style – either that, or it really was so old that his style had completely changed. Either way, he wondered why this particular song had been important enough to bring him here in the middle of the night.

Rei took a deep breath. "I co-wrote it," he answered softly. "I told you... that I came to Tokyo a long time ago."

Teru nodded.

"Visual kei did not exist then, at least not as we know it. I was in many bands, and I experimented with many different types of music. Heavy metal, glam rock – the music that gave birth to visual kei. I told you that… that Saki was much younger. He found this amusing." Rei smiled sadly. "He wrote this song for me… almost as a joke, at first. A relic of a song for a relic of a singer. But it became a project for the two of us. I wrote the lyrics. We even played it live." He lowered his face, as though he could not bear to look at Teru anymore. "I need to do something, Teru. I owe him this much."

"Okay." Teru was surprised by his own reaction. A few weeks ago, he knew this would have bothered him, but compared to what he had spent the afternoon imagining… he was willing to give Saki this much. "We sell this song. Got it." When Rei didn't answer right away, he continued. "Look… the guys have been talking about recording something too. I – that's what I wanted to talk to you about and… they're meeting this Saturday. They want you to come. I think… I think we should get this ready to play for them."

"Saturday…" Rei repeated the word carefully. "Two days. I don't know… It is difficult to remember."

"I'll help you." Teru had no idea where the words had come from; he was suddenly desperate to help Rei with this. If there was any chance that this could make him feel better, could help erase even some of his guilt...

"You are kind, Teru, but…"

"Got any drumsticks?" It was intended as a joke, but as soon as the words were out of his mouth, Teru felt his face grow red. "I mean… I'm sorry. That was… that was a stupid question."

"No…" Rei shook his head slowly. "No, it wasn't. You are a better drummer than I am." There was a hint of bitter sarcasm in his voice, but to Teru's relief, he seemed more amused than upset by the idea. "In the front room – to your right, next to the front door. There is a large bookshelf on the far side of the room. Next to the bookshelf you will find a box marked 14. I believe… I believe that there are drumsticks at the bottom of the box." Teru looked at him with a question in his eyes, but Rei refused to make eye contact. "Go. Please."

Teru knew that there was another room in the apartment, of course; he'd seen the door that was always closed, the window that from the outside appeared to be covered with some kind of black cloth or paper. But until now, he had never really given it much thought. Now, as he turned the doorknob and groped for the light switch, he was consumed with curiosity. Maybe it was morbid, maybe it was simply overstepping his bounds, but Teru wanted to know whatever there was to know, and if Rei had been keeping this room from him, he was suddenly sure that there must be a reason.

The lights flickered on slowly, as though they'd been roused from a deep sleep. Only two of the three bulbs in the fixture seemed to work, and all three were coated with dust. The room itself was clean enough; someone had swept the floor, if not recently, though the bookshelf Rei had mentioned wasn't in any better shape than the light. It was full of LP records and cassette tapes, books that may have been magazines or books of sheet music. Teru knew he would leave fingerprints if he looked through them, and so he didn't, though he ached with curiosity. He wondered if some of those records were from Rei's old bands, if any of the magazines might have pictures.

If the bookshelf intrigued him, however, the rest of the room was a solid disappointment. The box Rei had mentioned was exactly where he had said it would be – a big brown cardboard box, marked with a permanent marker in a neat, even hand that he suspected was not Rei's. Next to it was another box, and on top of that one, another. There was a bed in the far corner of the room, but it too was heavily laden with boxes, marked with numbers from one to at least 24 – that was the largest number Teru saw at least, and there were at least that many boxes in the room. But that was it. None of the boxes were opened, none of them marked with anything other than numbers. They told him nothing at all, and Teru felt his anticipation fade as quickly as it had grown.

Some of the boxes looked as though they may have been opened and closed, but number 14 was nearly new. The top had been folded shut, and Teru opened it as carefully as he could, feeling a little like he was treading on sacred ground and not wanting to damage anything – even a cardboard box. Inside, he was a little surprised to find that it was mostly full of clothes. He knew that Rei was waiting for him to come back, was probably counting the seconds until he did, and so he didn't give himself time to really look. What he saw looked like a costume, or more likely pieces of several, and he felt a little dirty touching it, not sure if it had belonged to Rei, or to Saki, or to one of the other band members about whom he knew nothing at all. The drumsticks were at the bottom of the box, as Rei had said. There were three pairs, and one stick that didn't seem to have a partner. Teru took the pair that seemed the newest, closed the box as carefully as he could, and feeling as though he was running from temptation, left the room in a hurry.

If Rei had been paying any attention to the time, he gave no sign. He was still at the computer, totally immersed in his work. Teru took an awkward seat on the sofa, not entirely sure what he was doing or how this was going to work. Again, Rei seemed not to notice. Teru cleared his throat, wondering if Rei had even noticed that he had returned.

"Please wait." Rei clicked and dragged something on the computer screen; Teru couldn't see from this distance what he was doing, and doubted that he would understand it anyway. "That will do, for now. Now play."

The music started again, and Teru froze for a moment, not sure what exactly Rei expected him to do. He didn't have a drum set, didn't even have any idea of what to play. He tapped one stick hesitantly on the edge of the table, just keeping the beat at first. His other hand joined in, following intuition more than anything else, and he let his foot take over the beat as something akin to a real drumline started to come to him. It wasn't fancy, and it wasn't brilliant, but Rei watched and nodded as though he approved.

When the music stopped, Rei returned his attention to the computer. "Try this," he said, so softly that Teru wasn't sure if he might not be talking to himself. And then he began to play, almost what Teru had played, but simpler, at least at first. Then he added another layer - this one more detailed, with cymbals and accents that Teru hadn't though to include. Finally, he tapped out the rhythm of the bass drum. One bit at a time, tapped out with two or three fingers on a little drum pad – but when he put it all together and played it back with the other instruments, it sounded good.

Teru picked up the rhythm, hitting the air where the cymbals and toms should have been. It worked. They had thrown it together from nothing in the space of a few minutes, but it worked.

"That will do, for the chorus." Rei did not take his eyes from the screen, but Teru thought that he sounded satisfied. "Do you have to work tomorrow?"

"Um… yeah." It was almost an apology.

"Then I will work on the rest alone. Tonight… I want to hear you sing."

The music began again, and this time Rei sang along:

"Kono machi wa kyuuketsuki  
Tamashii wo suikomitsuzuku  
Aijin de arinagara boku no hametsu  
Nigetakutemo nigerarenai."."

The words sent a chill up Teru's spine: _This town is a vampire/Sucking away at my soul/Both my lover and my bane/I want to escape but I can't._ He wondered what had prompted Rei to write such a horrible thing, so many years ago.

"Is that – is that how you feel?" He had to ask, when the song was over. He had never thought of Tokyo as a vampire or anything else; it had been his hometown of Sanjo that had threatened to break him, to destroy his soul.

Rei shook his head. "There is nowhere else… for me." But he smiled sadly when he said it, and did not give Teru a chance to say anything else. "Sing," he commanded, and Teru had no choice but to obey.

They sang it together first, one line at a time until Teru had memorized most of the lyrics, and then he tried it alone. It wasn't the kind of music he was used to singing, but he didn't think he'd done too terribly, for a first try. It rubbed his voice raw though, the almost-screaming that he had to do to get into the upper registers without losing the tone of the song. He wondered if he was doing something that might damage his voice, but Rei didn't say anything, and that was usually a good sign.

Teru slept on the sofa while Rei continued to work, and in the morning he borrowed the shower again, changing into the clean clothes he had bought before heading off to the 7-11. Rei asked him what time he would be back – "tomorrow" clearly was not an option – and Teru gave him a late estimate, deciding that it would be a good idea to stop by his own apartment for another change of clothes, just in case.

"I will see you tonight, then." Rei was obviously exhausted: his eyes were bloodshot and he was favoring his leg even more than usual, but he smiled as they said goodbye, and Teru couldn't help but smile back.

When he returned after work, with a change of clothes not only for Friday but for Saturday as well, Teru found Rei at the computer again, and the music room practically carpeted with folders of sheet music, stacks of CD and MDs, and dozens of loose pages with what may have been notes or lyrics or just randomly scribbled ideas. "What's this?" He picked up one of the loose sheets of paper, but if it was supposed to be lyrics they were practically illegible.

"The rest of your album."

"The rest…?" Teru surveyed the room again. Some of the folders were yellowing around the edges, the CD cases cracked and the paper inserts folded. There was enough here to fill twenty albums, and Teru highly doubted that much if any of it had been written with him in mind. "Where did this come from?"

"Does it matter?" If Rei had been friendly, almost flirtatious this morning, his tone of voice was all business now. "Listen."

They listened to one song after another, some of them full recordings with live instruments and vocals, others rough a capella or keyboard performances consisting of the melody and nothing else. Sometimes Teru sang a verse or two, when Rei wanted to see how well his voice fit a song that hadn't necessarily been written for it. Other songs were listened to and then put aside, and a set of newer compositions were included without discussion. There were far too many songs to put on a single album – the work, Teru knew, of at least the past five years. But they put what they had on a stack of MDs, printed out the lyrics that were saved in the computer and made notes of which songs had yet to be transcribed.

Teru slept when he was tired; Rei seemed not to sleep at all. Thursday turned into Friday; at Teru's insistence, they ate, but whether it was breakfast, lunch, or dinner, neither of them could have said for sure. When he looked at his phone at last, it was a quarter to three. They had narrowed down the huge library of songs quite a bit, in terms of percentages, but it was still enough to record four or five albums, at least. They packed it all into a faded black duffel bag: CDs and MDs when they had them, printed sheet music when they did not. Teru counted and recounted the copies; there would be enough for everyone. Somehow, in the space of two days, they had done it. Fifteen minutes later, without having spoken a word about anything other than music, the two men crawled into bed – too exhausted to do anything but fall asleep.

* * *

The meeting had been set for noon, at a family restaurant in Kichijoji – a good thirty or forty minute train ride from Meguro, depending on the transfers. Teru had set the alarm on his phone to go off at ten, and after a prolonged battle with the snooze button, he crawled out of bed at ten thirty and into the shower. Rei was quiet as he, too, showered and dressed, double and triple checking every aspect of his appearance in the cracked bathroom mirror. Making sure, Teru knew, that none of his secrets would be exposed. Teru wanted to offer words of encouragement, to tell the man he loved that none of it mattered, that he didn't have to dress up for Teru's friends, that the music was the only thing they would care about. But Teru was just as nervous as Rei seemed to be, and he didn't really want to lie.

Teru slung the faded duffel over one shoulder and crammed his feet into the worn-out pair of tennis shoes he had been wearing since Wednesday. He hadn't thought it was necessary to dress up for Rei anymore, after what had happened between them. Maybe he'd been right, in a way. Rei had hardly even glanced his way since he'd come back from his trip. He certainly didn't seem to care what Teru was wearing.

Still, he tried to tell himself, it may have just been nerves. Teru's heart was beating at twice its normal speed; he could only imagine what Rei must be feeling. They made their way to the station in near silence, each of them alone with their thoughts.

The Yamanote Line was crowded with Tokyo natives and tourists alike, everyone enjoying what was, for most families, the first day of summer vacation. Teru and Rei earned more than a few interested stares, but when a crowd of forty-something tourists speaking a language that Teru could not place tried to take their picture, he stepped deftly between the lens and his companion, obscuring the shot with a faded black duffel and a cloud of pink hair. He didn't miss the look of gratitude in Rei's eyes as the tourists got off at Harajuku without their souvenir snapshot.

The restaurant was only about a five minute walk from the station, even for Rei with his cane and Teru with the overstuffed duffel bag, and despite the crowded streets and a group of teenagers loitering by the front entrance, they managed to make it through the doors, if not quite to the table, before noon. The hostess seemed to be expecting them, and led them to a long table in the back, where the rest of the band was already seated. Teru suppressed a groan. He hadn't dared to hope that they would be the first, but he hadn't quite been expecting everyone to be there, to see the two of them arrive together.

He forced a smile. "Hi, guys. I, um, I guess most of you know Rei?" Yuu nodded politely; Seika gave a knowing little smile. Teru blushed, unable to meet Rei's eyes as he introduced the rest of the band. "And you remember Yuu, Seika, Yasu… this is Nao." The drummer gave a nervous nod that was almost a bow. "And… Kiyomi."

Teru's mouth fell open, and he was powerless for a moment to stop the wide-eyed expression that he felt spread over his face. He hadn't known she would be here. There was no _reason _for her to be here. "Wh – what are you doing here?" His thoughts became words before he'd had a chance to consider the consequences.

Kiyomi, for her part, looked as shocked as Teru was, and more than a little embarrassed, too. They'd barely spoken at the show the previous weekend, though Kiyomi had made an effort to apologize for her actions the _last_ time they had seen one another. Teru had brushed it off with a smile, telling her it was nothing… but it still bothered him that she was here.

Her eyes met Teru's for a second, but then she looked away with such determination that Teru recognized her behaviour immediately for what it was. He knew this look, by now, had seen it on the faces of a hundred, a thousand people all over the city, whenever he had been out with Rei. She was trying so hard not to stare that she_ was_ staring – at everything else. Her napkin, still lying folded on the table, had grabbed her attention at the moment, and she spoke to it in a shy but steady voice. "Everyone asked me to come," she explained. "I mean, I don't know anything about music. But you're all so busy, I just thought that I might be able to help… with something."

"Kiyomi's a fan," Yuu explained. "I mean, she's staff, of course, but she likes visual kei. She's the kind of person we're tying to sell to, so I though it would be nice to know what she thinks. About the track list, of course, but also about the cover art, liner notes…"

"I see." Rei's reply was cold, but left no room for argument. Kiyomi could stay.

Teru deposited the duffel bag on an extra chair, and pulled out another for Rei, acutely aware of the expressions on his friends' faces as he did so. He wished that he hadn't told Seika about the kiss, wished that he had never gone as far as he had with Kiyomi. _They know…. _ They couldn't, of course, but Teru was sure somehow that they did, that they were judging him, blaming him for letting his personal life interfere with the band – even if the interference had been largely positive.

The entire table fell into an awkward near-silence as menus were distributed and lunches and drinks were ordered. Starving and determined to ease his nerves somehow, Teru ordered a hamburger and a beer. Rei, on the other hand, asked only for black coffee, and left it untouched on the table beside him.

"Well, then, if everyone's ready?" Yuu glanced around the table for confirmation, and for not the first time since he'd joined the band, Teru found himself thanking whatever twist of luck or genetics had given his band leader that clear, professional demeanor. It was easy to imagine that Rei had been the same way, once – running his band as if it were a company, able to put everything else aside for the sake of the music and the business behind it.

As the conversation turned to timetables, recording facilities, and composition, Teru found himself feeling a little left out. He didn't write music, had never really bothered to study theory. He'd taught himself to play the drums with books and videos and help from friends at school, and any singing that didn't come naturally had been picked up in a karaoke booth. Aside from a few years of kiddie piano lessons and Yasu's wasted attempts to teach him a few chords on the guitar, that was the extent of his musical ability. For years, he'd been fine with that, happy just to play and to leave the creative work to others. But Rei had given him a taste of creative power over the course of the past few days, and now, with his own future on the line, he found himself vainly wishing that he had more to contribute.

Kiyomi, apparently, felt the same way – she seemed more interested in not staring at Rei than in the actual conversation – and while Nao seemed to be listening to what the others had to say, as the newest member of the band he seemed reluctant to contribute any strong opinions.

Rei, on the other hand, had done his homework well despite having had only two days in which to prepare. He had apparently contacted the studio technicians who had worked on the single and discussed available studio times in the early fall. Of course, it would all depend on which songs were going to go on the album, he explained. The more new songs they wanted to include, the more time would be needed before they were ready to record.

Yuu nodded, scribbling the last line of his second page of notes and turning to a third. "Well, we've got a couple of songs that haven't been recorded," he explained. "And one that needs a little work on the lyrics. But we're thinking about re-recording some of the songs we did with… with our old vocalist." Yuu had done his homework, as well, producing a handful of CDs and offering them to Rei.

Teru took them and slid them into one the side pockets of the duffle bag. In exchange, he retrieved one of the folders of sheet music that he and Rei had prepared the night before. "We, uh… we might not have to do that." He glanced at Rei, seeking permission to continue his intrusion into the conversation. "Re-record anything, I mean."

Yuu flipped through the pages of music with a raised eyebrow, and then passed the folder along to Seika as he took the second, and then the third. Teru produced piles of MDs, organized by color and divided into four sets, one for each of the remaining members. "Not everything is recorded," he apologized. "But it's all, I mean…"

"It's yours." Rei smiled a little as he said it, seeming for a moment to forget any awkwardness that his presence here today might have caused. "Use anything you want. I ask only that I am allowed to produce it."

Yuu shook his head. "I can't… We can't possibly accept this." But the smile that played at the corner of his eyes said otherwise.

"I insist."

"How much do you want for them?"

Rei shook his head. "To hear them played properly will be enough."

Teru caught Seika's eye as the bassist raised a carefully sculpted eyebrow in thought. "That's… generous of you." There was a question hidden there, but neither Teru nor Rei chose to acknowledge it.

"Wow…" Yuu's professional demeanor disappeared for a moment, and he was like a kid on Christmas morning. "Okay. This definitely changes my thoughts on the track list. I guess we need to take these home and really listen to them before we make a final decision, but we're looking at five or six new songs, right? We've got my songs, and Yasu's… that new one of Rei's we've been playing. Around ten tracks total would be nice… Kiyomi?"

"Yes?" She put aside the folder of music that she had be feigning interest in.

"It looks like it might be awhile before we actually start recording, and I know we've only got half a track list, but if you could start thinking about potential album names, jacket designs… maybe a new set of costumes?"

Yasu groaned out loud, echoing Teru's feelings on the matter as well. "Some of us _are _broke, you know," he muttered just loud enough to be heard.

"I said _maybe_," Yuu retorted. "It doesn't cost her anything to think about. I want to do this as professionally as we possibly can. We decide what we want to do, and then cut out what we can't afford, okay? Everyone else, go home and listen. Tell me what you like. Tell me what you don't like. The sooner we decide, the sooner we can start practicing."

"Ummm…?" Kiyomi raised a tentative hand, as though she were a schoolgirl uncertain of an answer to a question. "I'm sorry to interrupt. Are the songs that we – that they're already playing in here?" She gestured toward the nearest folder of sheet music. "I was just wondering if I could copy them? To get a copy of the lyrics?"

"They're in the liner notes," Teru blurted out, aware that his reply sounded short and maybe a little rude, but not wanting to give Rei and Kiyomi a chance to confront one another, even about something so insignificant. "The CD single," he explained. "The lyrics are in the liner notes."

Kiyomi shook her head. "Not that one… The song you played as the encore? The week before last? I mean… If you don't have them…." This last was addressed clearly to Rei, whom Teru could almost feel stiffening uncomfortably beside him.

"I…" Rei cleared his throat, and his tone grew formal and cold. "I am sorry. I did not think to bring a copy of a score which you had already received."

Kiyomi looked uncomfortable, but before she had a chance to apologize, Yuu interrupted with a diplomatic smile. "But that shouldn't be a problem, right? All you need is the lyrics?"

Kiyomi nodded. "But it's okay, really… I didn't mean to…"

"No, that makes sense." The band leader ripped a page from his notebook and offered it to Rei. "She's got a point," he suggested in a tone that in any other situation would have been friendly. "She's only heard the song that once, and if we want her to help out with our image…"

"I'll write them out for you." Teru snatched the piece of paper from the table and gave Kiyomi what he hoped was a friendly smile. "I – I mean, I'm not going to be much help, talking about recording and all…" The end of his sentence trailed off to a mutter as he realized too late that the explanation hadn't really been needed. None of the others seemed to have realized yet that Rei typed everything for a reason.

As he scribbled out the words to the song, singing to himself under his breath to ensure that he didn't miss anything, Teru was only marginally aware of the conversation going on around him. Someone – he assumed Rei – had suggested using a violin in one of the songs, and Yuu was arguing that their money would be better spent on studio time than on hiring a violinist. Teru had no real opinion to contribute. He knew that Sugizo played violin in some of Luna Sea's songs, and he liked those well enough – but he'd never really thought that anything was missing in any of the music that his own band played.

As long as he was writing, however, none of the others seemed to notice that he didn't have a lot to contribute. So when he was done with the lyrics that Kiyomi had asked for, Teru made himself Rei's secretary, taking notes on the conversation in the back of one of the pads of staff paper that had been thrown into the duffel bag the night before. With the words on paper before him, the idea of the album started to seem more like reality, and once or twice he even ventured an opinion of his own.

Beside him, Rei gradually relaxed into his role as producer, and Teru watched with an odd kind of pride as at least some of his shields melted away. He spoke to Yuu and Yasu almost as equals – as fellow composers, as colleagues in pursuit of a common goal. Teru was almost glad to be forgotten. He kept his eyes on his notes, and all he could see was the man that Rei must have been before fate had been so cruel to him.

They talked and brainstormed for hours, and if very little was actually decided in that time, every one of the meeting's participants left the table with a smile and a host of ideas that would sooner or later come together as a whole. It was the album that would make or break them – even Teru, with his limited knowledge of the way the industry worked, had picked up on that. It would either be their first and last album as an indies group, or the first of a string of mediocre attempts.

Kiyomi plucked the check from where the waitress had deposited it in a slot at the side of the table and pulled out her cell phone to calculate the amount that everyone owed. "Nine hundred apiece, if we split it evenly. Or if everyone just wants to pay for their own…." She began punching numbers into the phone's calculator feature, but Seika, who along with Rei was one of the only two not to order a meal, stopped her.

"Nine hundred is fine with me." He sought confirmation from Rei – everyone else would have owed at least that much anyway – but Rei's attention was commanded by his own wallet, hidden in some pocket in the depths of the cloak he habitually wore, even in the heat of summer.

"It's fine." Again, Teru spoke up before Rei had had a chance to. Ignoring the eyes that now questioned him from around the table, he pulled his own wallet from his bag and retrieved two thousand-yen notes. "I've got his."

"Teru –" Rei whispered frantically in reply.

"No." Teru shook his head, pasting a phony smile on his face as he put his wallet away, painfully aware that the two bills he had just put on the table were his last. "You've – you've done enough for us." It was a show, all of it, and he was sure that the others would notice how insincere he sounded – but it was better than the alternative. It was better than watching Rei fumble with his own wallet as he had when they'd gone out together. Better than making him expose one of his secrets in front of people who maybe – just maybe – had a chance of respecting him for his music, and his music alone. And it was definitely better than answering the questions that were already lurking behind his bandmates' smiles. "It's the least I can do to repay you," he finished, not quite managing to look Rei in the eye.

The others seemed to accept this, and the bill was paid without incident. Seika left to get ready for work that night; Teru breathed a silent sigh of relief as those knowing eyes left the table, putting off the questions he feared the most for at least awhile.

"I, um… I guess I should get going too…." Teru slung the duffel bag over one shoulder and patted his pocket anxiously. He hadn't had a cigarette in over 48 hours, and his nerves were starting to wear him down.

"Wait a minute." Yasu stopped him. "You have to work tonight?"

"Uh… no…"

"You want to grab a beer then?"

Teru's eyes unconsciously sought Rei's. They hadn't made any plans for after the meeting, but while the idea of a beer with his best friend sounded better than just about anything right now, an evening with Rei – the man, not the composer – was one of the few things that might be worth turning down the invitation.

"Will you walk me to the station first?" Rei's voice was distant, but not unkind, and Teru smiled in relief, glad that there would be no more conflict today.

"Is that okay with you guys?" He wasn't sure if Nao and Yuu were included in the invitation, but he addressed the question to everyone. No one objected – they were all in a good mood after the meeting, and a few minutes of their singer's time were expendable enough, when they were getting folders full of new music in return.

Rei was tired; Teru knew that his silence on the way to the station was a testament to fatigue, rather than to any disappointment or anger. Teru was tired too, of course, but he was young and healthy and above all, used to putting on a smile and doing what had to be done, even after a largely sleepless night. He could have had the conversation he had been rehearsing in his head for the past couple of days, could have pushed for some kind of clarification, some kind of name to put to whatever their relationship had become. But today it would be kinder not to, and so he contented himself with sharing the small joy of a meeting that had been far less humiliating than it could have been.

Their goodbye was muted, understated and tasteful for the benefit of the crowd around them. Teru hoped that his eyes said what his lips could not, and he put into words what he could: "Thank you. For everything."

Rei shook his head. "It is I who should thank you," he smiled in response, and it was one of the most genuine smiles Teru had ever seen on those lips, beautiful even in its asymmetry, beautiful despite of – or perhaps because of – the almost imperceptible lines it brought to the corner of the mouth and eye. "I almost felt… as though I belonged."

Teru nodded, but he didn't know what to say in reply. "Are you sure you can get home okay?"

"I am fine."

Teru nodded again. "I'll see you later then."

"Teru?"

"What?"

"I have… something to ask you."

"Yeah?" Teru's heart leaped up into his throat in what may have been a gesture of excitement or of fear – he could not have said which. He had wanted to talk about their relationship, about their date, about Rei's disappearance and what he had done in those six days. But he didn't want to talk about any of it here, not in the middle of Kichijoji Station with half of the world swarming around them. "Wh – what is it?"

"We will be very busy, from now on. You will need to devote yourself entirely to your music."

Teru nodded, unsure of where this was going.

"You know that you don't need to work, anymore."

Teru blinked. "Excuse me?"

"I want you to quit your job." Rei took a deep breath, apparently gathering his thoughts before he continued. "You don't have to worry about money. None of you do. You can tell your friends… money is not an issue. The job is a waste of your time. The music is all that matters."

"I…" Teru began, but he had no idea how to finish his answer. _I can't do that. I shouldn't. I'd love to. _ More than anything else, he wanted a cigarette. His hand strayed to his pocket, forgetting for a moment that the station was a no-smoking area.

Rei's eyes followed, and he raised an eyebrow in disapproval. "Of course, my money will be ill-spent if you continue to destroy your voice. Think about it. The offer does not expire."

Teru could only nod; his mouth had gone dry and all the words he had to say were busy contradicting one another. If Rei was really willing to support him, so that he could pursue his music… it was like a dream. But there would be strings attached, he knew. As long as he had his own income, however small, his own apartment, his own life…. As long as he had those, he could always get out.

"Think about it."

"Yeah," Teru nodded again. "I will."

His bandmates and Kiyomi were waiting for him in a bar near the restaurant, lost in conversation over frothy mugs of beer. As Teru crammed himself into the booth next to Kiyomi, Yasu slid a mug across the table in his direction, causing the beer to slosh over the rim and into Teru's lap. "You idiot!" Teru laughed in spite of himself, taking the napkins that Kiyomi offered him and sopping up what he could of the spill.

"Hey, Teru." Nao pulled a single earphone out of his ear and passed it to Yuu; Kiyomi was wearing the other one. "We were just listening to a couple of these songs. Only one MD player, though, and it's kind of noisy in here." He smiled as if in apology.

"This is the one we were just listening to." Yuu opened a folder of sheet music to the appropriate page; Teru recognized it as one of the songs they'd been working on last night.

"I've heard it, yeah. What do you think?"

Teru could feel Kiyomi's eyes on his face, searching for… what? He owed her some kind of explanation, he knew. But whatever he said would probably hurt her, and he didn't even know what was true at this point. So he avoided her eyes – not a terribly difficult thing to do, under the bar's dim, reddish lights – and tried to focus on the music.

After one or two songs, however, it became apparent that his bandmates were more interested in another line of discussion – and this time, Teru had to admit, they raised some valid points. He could hardly expect them to trust Rei or his music, when they didn't really even know who he was.

"I like the songs, I really do," explained Yuu. "He's obviously a talented composer, and something about him makes me want to trust him…. But I just don't understand. Why is he helping us like this? I have no problem with sharing the profits, if there are any… but there's a good chance we're going to end up in the red after this. He could sell those songs to someone with the money to pay for them. I don't even know what our legal rights are in this situation…"

Teru drained the last of his beer in a single gulp, though he knew that it would be nowhere near enough to give him the courage to tell the truth. _He's doing it because he loves me._ Just thinking the words sent a shiver up his spine. He took a deep breath. "I know it seems too good to be true," he agreed. "But I trust him. If you want him to sign a contract or something, he probably would. He wrote those songs for… for himself. And he can't perform anymore." Even in such vague terms, it was still hard to talk about. "I guess… I guess he just wants his songs to be heard."

That wasn't the whole truth, of course, and while the others nodded a kind of acceptance, Teru knew that they weren't fully convinced. He could see the questions in their eyes, and could only imagine what they might be thinking. Nao, who had never met Rei before, was simply curious. Yuu, the band's founder, leader, and until now, primary composer, was obviously torn – and Teru suspected that his uncertainty had very little to do with legalities. But Yasu and Kiyomi were the worst, and Teru didn't allow himself to make eye contact with either of them, because he knew what their eyes would be saying: _I thought we were friends. Who is this guy? Where did he come from? What is he to you?_ And most importantly: _Why didn't you tell me?_


End file.
